Infanzia e fantasmi. La forma-racconto in Michele Mari

This article focuses on Michele Mari’s short-story production. Throughout his collections, from Euridice aveva un cane (1993) to Fantasmagonia (2012), and especially in Tu, sanguinosa infanzia (1997), the author has created a fruitful dialogue of themes and styles by alternating the writing of short stories with the realization of novels and poems. The effort to keep the past alive in the memory and in material objects, and the materialization of literature-inspired obsessions are the main axes of Mari’s narrative, despite the changes in form and in mode of expression. We thus aim to explain how, by taking advantage of the narrative peculiarities of the short story form, Mari has succeeded in concentrating and deepening the literary reflections about a childhood imaginary whose dimension is always private and collective at the same time.