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Umberto Eco’s final book to be released on Friday

The last book from Italian literary giant Umberto Eco, who died last week, will be published on Friday, his publishers said.

Umberto Eco's final book to be released on Friday
The late writer's new book is out on Friday. Photo: Francois Guillot/AFP

“Pape Satan Aleppe. Chronicles of a Liquid Society” is a collection of essays that have appeared in Italian weekly L'Espresso since 2000, publishers La Nave di Teseo said Sunday.
   
The main title is the first three words of Canto 7 of “Inferno”, the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th century epic poem “Divine Comedy”.
   
The meaning of the words has sparked numerous interpretations, but for Eco it is “sufficiently 'liquid' to characterise the confusion of our times”, according to a summary available on Amazon written by the author.
   
The book was originally due for publication in May, but the date was brought forward after the writer's death.
   
Eco, the literary and intellectual phenomenon who wrote mediaeval thriller “The Name of the Rose”, died at his Milan home on Friday, aged 84.
   
La Nave di Teseo, which announced the release date on its Facebook page, is a new publishing house that emerged after notable writers, including Eco, moved to protect their independence and editorial diversity after the birth of a publishing giant in Italy.

Last October, the family of former prime minister and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, owners of Arnoldi Mondadori Editore, announced they had bought RCS Libri, a book publishing affiliate of RCS, which owns the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
   
RCS, whose main shareholder is automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, groups a number of publishing houses, such as Rizzoli and Bompiani, which releases works in Italy by Eco and France's Michel Houellebecq.
   
The deal gave birth to a publishing giant which has a market share of around 40 percent in Italy.
   
La Nave di Teseo is headed by Elisabetta Sgarbi, former editorial director of Bompiani.

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ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

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