Born Twice

Letizia Muratori & Marta Lonardi

The protagonist of this book, an aristocratic lady chair, has seen a lot in her life and has been moved several times: from a living room to a switchboard, from a wet Italian cellar to a Berlin apartment.
Every time she is a silent witness of the great history that she sees through the windows, and that often disturbs her. The same happens to her personally, prisoner of a gender that does not belong to her by birth: “chair” in German is a male word. Times change, as people around her, and her relationships with the rest of the furniture are sometimes a bit stormy, but with the wisdom of old age all is settled and even the fi nal disappointment of having only dreamed seems to her like luck. The luck to have been able to be alive, among the lives of others.
A great author crosses ages and places, dreams, thoughts, fears, and fragility, from a very particular point of view, that of a chair. While words trace a reflection on identity and our place in the world, the illustrations tell the great history of the 1900s between Italy and Germany, from the rise of fascism to the fall of the Berlin Wall.