These Things Happen

Some might say that life is strange, whilst others might say it isn’t at all. We’ll simply say that life and plot are synonymous, even if this claim isn’t backed up by any dictionary. But dictionaries, as we know, are always lagging behind the way the world works.

In the hundred stories that make up this book, Filippi introduces us to the unpredictable, taking us on an exploration of the tenuous and shifting boundary between life and death: a liminal space, a sort of Temporary Autonomous Zone of the mind, where, however, things happen, sparking sudden insights and unexpectedly altering the trajectories of our lives and those of others. Distancing itself from any rigidly defined genre, and in dialogue with the most beloved authors, this collection ranges from the crime story to the diary entry, from political denunciation to reflections on what it means to create literature. With the reminder to always keep one eye open to capture even the smallest events of life – sometimes comic, sometimes tragic – these pages should be traversed with a light step, as if they were a narrow path between the beds of a vegetable garden, where the most diverse seeds have been sown, which, it is hoped, will one day become trees, flowers, fruit and oxygen.