Books for Christmas: Luca Fregona

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"Books for Christmas" remains the cultural highlight of the Bolzano Christmas Market. High-calibre authors are guests in Bolzano this year to present their works and meet the public.
The 8th edition will take place this year on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 24 November to 16 December in the Mercantile Building, in the Festival Hall of the Municipality of Bolzano and in the City Club.
If you want to give yourself or your friends a book as a gift, then the Bolzano Christmas Market is the right place for you! A signed book is always appreciated.

LUCA FREGONA: "LAGGIÚ DOVE SI MUORE. IL VIETNAM DEI GIOVANI ITALIANI CON LA LEGIONE STRANIERA"

The author, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Alto Adige, had the opportunity to collect stories of young Italians and South Tyroleans who were recruited after the war by the Foreign Legion and sent to fight in Vietnam against Ho Chi Minh's Liberation Army.
The book opens with the long and articulate testimony of Giorgio Cargioli, a former legionnaire from La Spezia (living), who deserted at the end of the conflict in Indochina to escape the three years of engagement that remained to him. Captured by the French, he was sentenced to six years in prison. With him was 23-year-old Luciano Saggese from Bolzano. Both of them were protagonists of an escape that made waves around the world at the time. Together with other comrades, they rebelled on the steamer taking them back to Algeria, throwing themselves into the sea at Port Said in the Suez Canal. Only about thirty managed to reach the shore and survive. Cargioli and Saggese made it. They were taken over by their respective consulates and repatriated. The book then proceeds with micro-stories of South Tyrolean and other legionnaires (about ten). These are profiles, enriched with photos and documents that the author collected and selected from the numerous and continuous reports from relatives. The individual stories are also seen from the perspective of the families, who, in some cases, still do not know where their loved ones are buried. The idea is to make them snapshots of a generation swallowed up by the war and vanished into thin air.

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