A searing story of identity, ambition, and the cost of leaving home, from one of Italy’s most vital contemporary voices

Gabriele left Rome to reinvent himself. He traded the working-class streets of his childhood for the sleek design studios of Milan, where he’s built a successful career and a new life—one carefully distanced from the neighborhood he came from.

But when he returns home for a family celebration, Gabriele is pulled back into a world that feels both comforting and claustrophobic: the slow rhythms of Rome, his loving but provincial family, and childhood friends whose lives have remained circumscribed by the same few blocks. Torn between nostalgia and shame, Gabriele is forced to reckon with everything he tried to leave behind.

And when a rumor about the true source of his success begins to circulate, the careful identity he’s constructed in Milan begins to crumble. In the space between who he was and who he’s become, Gabriele must confront the of where he truly belongs.

Written with grace, empathy, and psychological precision, The Burning Origin is a powerful story about social mobility, self-invention, and the double-edged freedom of those who leave.

Daniele Mencarelli
Daniele Mencarelli is a poet and author. Born in Rome in 1974, he now lives in Ariccia, Italy. He is a regular contributor to several Italian newspapers and magazines. Everything Calls for Salvation, his second novel, won the 2020 Youth Strega Prize.