Our Authors

Natalino

Natalino Merotto (1946–2024) was a teacher, activist and author. He dedicated his entire life to public education, transmitting to his students not only knowledge, but also a strong sense of civic responsibility and a passion for justice. Active from a young age in the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI), he combined his political commitment with a deep artistic vocation.
In the 1980s, he was a co-founder of the Arcivideo 23 collective, with which he wrote and directed several documentary and narrative audiovisual works focusing on the Resistance, Albania and other themes related to collective memory and identity. His talent as a filmmaker, his ability to translate the evocative power of faces and places into vivid visual sequences, also runs through the pages of this novel. Il parco della contessa is an intense, neorealist work in which writing becomes visual storytelling and brings to life the humanity of an Italy that no longer exists, but that continues to speak to the present.

Il parco della contessa is currently available in Italian.

Donata

Donata R. Gai (1947–2016) was an exceptional woman and professional. She graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan in 1972 and began her career in hospitals in the province of Treviso, first as a medical assistant and later as a senior physician in General Medicine. A rigorous physician, yet deeply compassionate, she always combined clinical expertise with a rare attention to people, their stories and the injustices of the system around them.
Alongside her work in the hospital, she was also politically active for fifteen years as a municipal councillor. In 1988, she established the Home Care Service in her local health district, working on the front line to make healthcare more accessible, better organised and more responsive to the real needs of citizens.
Curious, passionate and never tired of learning, in 2001 she earned a second degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures, returning to studies and passions that had accompanied her throughout her life. This book, based on a manuscript she wrote in the late 1980s, offers a glimpse into her voice, her battles and her vision of the world, which remain remarkably relevant today. Quasi un romanzo, part novel and part diary, is now being published in a second edition, featuring a new cover designed by Leonardo Rosselli.

Quasi un romanzo is currently available in Italian.

Laura

Laura Merotto, daughter of Natalino and Donata, is an engineer by training and a free and creative spirit by nature. Born in the late 1970s and raised in the province of Treviso, she grew up surrounded by the atmosphere of the legendary 1970s in the Veneto countryside, which she did not experience firsthand but which became a central setting in her parents’ books. From 1997, she spent twenty years living in Milan, where she earned a degree in Aerospace Engineering and worked at Politecnico di Milano and the Italian National Research Council (CNR). She now lives and works in Switzerland. Throughout all three stages of her life, alongside her scientific background, she has always cultivated a passion for writing and for observing people, whom she tries to portray with a gaze that is not only amused, but also (hopefully) amusing. Sogni, comunisti e altri disastri is her first book and is available in both Italian and English, the latter with the title of Dreams, communists and other disasters.