The lights and colors of spring make you want to spend time outdoors, perhaps relaxing a bit between the pages of a book that can evoke the scents, emotions and magical atmospheres of the Salento peninsula. If you are thinking about where to spend your holidays, let yourself be inspired by this article, in which we recommend 5 books that will immerse you completely in the enchanting world of the heel of Italy. Five literary works that will make you want to go to Salento… in spring!

 

1. Nostra Signora Dei Turchi by Carmelo Bene (Bompiani, 1965)

In a collection like this, it is necessary to start with a classic, also transposed into theatrical and cinematographic works. From literature to theater through cinema and philosophy, in fact, Carmelo Bene is a totem of Salento culture in the world. In this novel he tells his story as in an imaginary autobiography that starts from the “South of the South of the Saints”, his Santa Cesarea Terme, through the history of the Otranto Massacre but also characters like San Giuseppe da Copertino, the flying saint. Suggestions that draw from his inner turmoil of “buffoon genius” and that will immediately connect you with the most intimate depths of the soul of this territory.

2. Rosso Taranta by Angelo Morino (Sellerio, 2006)

Following in the footsteps of Ernesto de Martino, the greatest Italian anthropologist of the twentieth century, and his “Land of Remorse”, a university professor undertakes a journey to Salento in search of the “tarantate” who once a year, on the occasion of the celebrations for San Paolo, free themselves from the “taranta bite” in a frenetic dance in front of the churchyard of the Basilica of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, in Galatina. An autobiographical narrative that draws on the theme of the journey to the South seen as a path to explore oneself, but also the history of today and yesterday of the Salento peninsula.

3. Murene by Manuela Antonucci (Italo Svevo, 2020)

“From Taranto to Nardò there is nothing, there is the Arneo”, wrote the poet Vittorio Bodini of the Salento countryside where, in the 1950s, the farmers organized themselves and rebelled to take the land to which they were entitled. The Terre d’Arneo are the backdrop to the events of two generations who lived and fought there, converging on the character of Anna, who disappeared while she was reaching her companions in the fields and whose mystery will be brought to light by the discovery of her ring. The debut novel by Salento-born Manuela Antonucci, Murene is an untouched book, that is, one whose pages have intentionally not been cut to give the reader the emotion of a volume that no one else has leafed through before him and which contains the patient charm of the most hidden Salento, the one that remained outside the postcards.

4. I Segreti Della Scogliera by Marco Esposito (Lupo, 2014)

The protagonist Giuseppe Scrimieri is suffering from “writer’s block” and returns to Torre del Fiume (corresponding to Santa Maria al Bagno, in Salento), the town in the South where he spent his summer holidays as a child and where he set his first successful novel. The inhabitants of the village, whose secrets were revealed in the book, do not look favorably on his return, perhaps because they have other chilling skeletons hidden in the closets … An elegant, evocative prose full of twists and turns that will drag you into a breathless but extraordinary race towards the finale, between cliffs battered by the Salento winds, breathtaking landscapes, unforgettable characters and gripping mysteries.

5. Casa Rossa by Francesca Marciano (TEA, 2007)

The “Casa Rossa” has belonged to the Strada family for over seventy years but today the heir Alina finds herself having to sell it to an Australian couple who have decided to buy it. But that isolated house, surrounded by olive trees, which stands in the countryside south of Lecce, is not just a building: it is the story of her family, which began in the 1930s with her grandmother – the beautiful and elusive Renée – continued in the 1950s and 1960s with her mother – Alba, restless and independent – and which reaches up to the present day with Isabella and Alina, sisters who are distant in everything and yet, surprisingly, very close. An intimate and moving portrait of family life in Salento to delve into the deep bond that ties them to the land and local traditions.

With these five books, you will be ready to immerse yourself completely in the fascinating atmosphere of Salento in spring, which you can enjoy in a genuine and uncontaminated way at Tenuta Rocci Cerasoli. Book your stay now and get ready to explore in person the wonders of such a special land that you will have had the pleasure of touching on through the pages of these five novels.