Gian Marco Griffi: the writer no one wanted and is now a phenomenon

BarcelonaWhen it comes to talking about Mexican Railways, the editor of La Segunda Periferia, Miquel Adam, says that this novel by Piedmontese Gian Marco Griffi (Montemagno, 1976) is "a miracle." The truth is that the book was bound to go unnoticed and, most likely, would never have ended up in his hands if it weren't for the enthusiasm of Italian readers. Translated into Catalan by Pau Vidal, Mexican Railways is a nearly 700-page novel starring Cesco Magetti, a soldier in the Fascist Italian Republic who receives the bizarre assignment of mapping Mexico's railways for his superiors. From there, Magetti embarks on an adventure filled with eccentric characters and bizarre stories, on a fascinating journey that is, at the same time, a tribute to great names in literature such as Juan Rulfo and Roberto Bolaño.

Until very recently, Griffi was a virtually unknown author in Italy. In 2019, he published his first collection of short stories, although he had been writing them for many years. "They seemed fresh and unique to me, but no one seemed to be interested. For many years I lived with the certainty that my stories were terrible," explains the writer. He sold 264 copies of that volume. "It was as if it hadn't been published," he says. As a result, he decided to start writing "something different" so that Italian readers would discover him. "At one point I thought about building a world to make these stories part of something more structured and complex. It was a kind of short story novel which gave me the first opportunity to try my hand at a broad narrative," Griffi says.

That's how it came about Mexican Railways, which a small Italian publishing house, Laurana, decided to publish. "The response from bookstores was disastrous: the print run was 1,500 copies, but all of Italy ordered only 168," explains the author. Everything was pushing the novel toward insignificance until some booksellers, after reading it, began to fervently recommend it. "Something revolutionary happened: the booksellers fell in love with it and sold it to their most loyal customers, who also fell in love and recommended it on social media. Suddenly, with the classic word of mouth, the novel was known to countless readers," notes Griffi. Then came the awards—it was nominated for Strega, the most important in Italy—and the translations (into Catalan, French, German, and soon into Czech and Croatian), in addition to the reissues. So far, more than 30,000 copies have been sold.

A "deeply anti-fascist" novel

Despite the numerous branches and subplots, Mexican Railways always moves forward with Cesco Magetti as a straw man. Griffi imagines a soldier who isn't a convinced fascist, but who is part of the National Republican Railway Guard and acts in its name. "In Italy, before Mussolini's arrest, everyone was a fascist on paper. You simply couldn't avoid being one. If you wanted to work, and therefore live, you had to be affiliated with the fascists. Young people had experienced nothing but fascism, and fascism was their daily life," Griffi emphasizes. Through Magetti, the writer portrays "a man who doesn't choose, who can't choose, and his toothache is an objective correlative of his malaise stemming from his inability to decide who he really is, to take responsibility."

While he's working his way through the entrusted mission, the soldier will meet a mysterious librarian (with whom he falls in love) and the shadowy undertakers Lito Zanón and Mec el Mut, who are in charge of boiling the corpses that arrive. Griffi paints a picture of an uchronic Italy, sometimes moving toward magical realism and other times toward science fiction. In one chapter, for example, a factory appears that produces skin dyes that change people's moods. In another, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun are the protagonists of a hilarious evening among Nazi officers. All of this with nods to writers who captivated him, such as Roberto Bolaño, Juan Rulfo, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Beppe Fenoglio.

In the background, the war reverberates, making the novel also a mirror of human evil, which the author presents as inevitable. "Even if we dug a hole large enough to bury all known weapons, from clubs to American bombers, men would still wage war," Griffi writes. Mexican Railways It aims to be a tribute to literature and art to combat it and, above all, an anti-fascist book. "In Italy, we have never overcome fascism. The Italian people have been dragging the fascism-anti-fascism dichotomy for a hundred years. By killing Mussolini, we thought we had gotten rid of an ideology, but that wasn't the case. Today in Italy (and perhaps around the world) we don't recognize the value of."

"Anti-fascism is an attitude: it is caring for others, fighting for rights (that never hurt anyone), being kind in this dark world, fighting against the established power, the tyrants, all those who think they can rule the world without respecting anyone, like Trump or Putin (I put the world on them), trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do at the same level, trying to do it at the same level, trying to do it at the same level, trying to do it at the same level, trying to do it to the world. Anti-fascism is also loving one's own life and the lives of others, being able to assign the right value to things. Mexican Railways, in this sense, is a profoundly anti-fascist novel."