"Franco Arminio is one of the most important poets of this country."
– Roberto Saviano, la Repubblica

"Arminio coined the term 'paesologia,' a manifesto. The poetics of landscapes, in short, shape our perspective."
– Mauro Garofalo, la Stampa

★The voice of one of Italy's most beloved poets guides us on a journey through countries that can only exist in our imagination, drawing a world dominated by the allure of the elsewhere.
★This is the literary culmination of Franco Arminio's work as a "paesologo" (an expert in the poetics of landscapes).

Escaping into the imagination has always been one of the paths writers take to evade the dictatorship of reality, starting with Calvino's Invisible Cities. This is the road Franco Arminio takes us on in the pages of this special book.
The countries he tells us about are invisible and impossible, existing nowhere but in our imagination, because they don't belong to the space and time we know. Instead, they travel through the shifting universe of fantasy and hide in the territory of nostalgia. They are only possible to the extent that we think of them, if we take the adventurous risk of distorting our gaze and removing it from the censorship of the plausible.
Thus, with a style that balances between dreams and refined linguistic play, a poetic atlas of countries takes shape—countries that belong to everyone precisely because no one has ever inhabited them. This is a world rooted in the sentiment of "elsewhere," which, with its touch, heals all wounds.
The result is a precious book, perfect for gifting, illustrated by the hand of a great author like Manuele Fior. An anthem to the joy and freedom of thought that reminds us that the only way to defend reality is always our willingness to imagine the unimaginable. Because that's where literature begins.

Franco Arminio (Bisaccia, 1960) is a poet, storyteller, and director. An inspiration and a key figure behind initiatives aimed at combating depopulation in Italy’s inland areas (such as the "Casa della Paesologia" in Bisaccia and the "La luna e i calanchi" festival in Aliano), he has published over thirty books, including "Terracarne" (2011) and "Cedi" (2017).