Love and freedom in ‘The shape of the heart’ by Monica Cirinnà and Anton Emilio Krogh

A tormented and overwhelming love story against the backdrop of a Naples overflowing with beauty and ghosts. But also the legislative process and the profound reasons that led to the approval of the Cirinnà Law. A real story that Senator Monica Cirinnà and the lawyer and writer Anton Emilio Krogh recount in the novel ‘The shape of the heart’ (Mursia, pp. 252, Euro 17.00), just released in bookstores and written jointly stars Ada and Eve, two women with palindromic names, who experience the unpredictability of love on their own skin. A strong and at the same time delicate novel that has the ability to charge the reader with an extraordinary positive energy to face life and its pitfalls with confidence and hope. “We live in a society in which rights, even those conquered, have the fragility of crystals, so if it is a law that gives them shape and substance, it is only the living testimony of every day that strengthens and protects them in their fragility”, Monica Cirinnà declares. “For this reason, in a world still full of prejudices in which episodes of bullying and homophobic violence are the order of the day, we felt that the story of Ada and Eve should be told”, adds Anton Emilio Krogh. two names so small and can be pronounced back and forth without changing their meaning. Ada is a chosen rifleman of the Italian Army. Eve is a Franciscan novice awaiting confirmation of her vows. Two different women, but who find themselves very similar when their destinies intertwine during a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Two lives, against the backdrop of a Naples overflowing with beauty and ghosts, who seek shelter under the reassuring morality of a uniform, but who find themselves experiencing the unpredictability of love on their own skin. To help them in a tortuous journey of love and bureaucracy there will be Margherita, a lawyer committed above all to making civil unions become law in Italy. This novel is a story of love and freedom, of a challenge to conventions and uniforms, but it is also the story of the legislative process of the Cirinnà Law, because love is not just a question between two people, but it is that glorious energy which acts as the glue of the entire community. Following the release of the book, the two authors will begin a tour of presentations in the next few weeks starting from Milan (Monday 15 November at 6.00 pm at the Feltrinelli Libri e Musica in Piazza Piemonte 2/4 – Simone Marchetti, director of Vanity Fair intervenes), and then continues with Rome (Thursday 25 November at 18.30 at Taverna Testaccio via di Monte Testaccio n.46) with Naples (Monday 29 November at 18.00 at the Feltrinelli Libri e Musica alla Corte dell’Arte di Foqus in via Portacarrese in Montecalvario 69 – with the participation of journalists Titta Fiore and Anna Paola Merone), and Palermo (Tuesday 07 December at 18.00 at the Feltrinelli Libri e Musica in via Cavour 133 – Stefania intervenes Petyx, correspondent of “Striscia la Notizie”) and then proceed to other Italian cities. Anton Emilio Krogh is a lawyer. Sensitive to the issues of coming out, bullying and discrimination, she presents her books in schools to raise awareness among children on these topics. With Mursia he published ‘There’s nobody like me. Diary of a dream ‘(2017) and’ We cannot stop the summer ‘(2018). Monica Cirinnà is a senator elected on the list of the Democratic Party. Graduated in Law from La Sapienza University of Rome, her name is linked to the Cirinnà Law, approved in May 2016, which also recognizes civil unions between people of the same sex in Italy, as well as a commitment to human rights. for the environment and for animals.