the essential
The Cultura store in Agen will welcome former journalist and new writer Olivier Longhi on Saturday, June 29. He will be signing copies of his novel, “Un été sicilien,” from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
One life, three careers. This is how we could describe Olivier Longhi’s journey. A journalist for more than 20 years and formerly of La Dépêche, he redirected himself towards teaching by becoming a professor of history and geography: “History is an old passion. I actually studied it.” But the shift does not stop there. After a Sicilian trip in 2009 and the loss of a loved one, Olivier Longhi ended up writing again, this time from a fictional angle.
A family story…
Italy has become a sort of tradition. The writer returns there regularly. But it is Sicily, where his family comes from, that marks him forever: “It is a trip that I wanted to make for a long time, and the images have stayed in my head”. Each page of the novel is imbued with this atmosphere. The reader meets Giulia Di Livio, the only daughter of a Sicilian family who navigates between mysteries and family upheavals.
Alongside teaching, Olivier writes. And this for three years: “In the spring of 2011, I started writing. I had ideas, scraps of text, but no intention of publishing at first”. Under the advice of his wife, he eventually proposed the novel to the Verona publishing house.
The small story is mixed with the big one since “A Sicilian Summer” takes us from the first hours of fascism to the aftermath of the Second World War. This link between imagination and historical reality is not surprising for this professor, who explains that he wanted to “put together a fiction, but in a historical framework”.
See you on June 29 at Cultura
Already signing at the La Femme René bookstore in Montauban on January 20, the writer is coming to meet the Agenais public this June 29. For Olivier, this type of event is above all “a meeting space”. Present from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Cultura, the writer expects many of you! His book will be on sale there as well as on all the usual sales platforms.
