Based on her novel Queen of Flowers and Pearls,  Italo-Ethiopian writer, artist and musician Gabriella Ghermandi will engage in a narrative performance that takes the audience on a long voyage in time and space, following the vicissitudes of an Ethiopian family during the dictatorship of Mengistù Hailé Mairam to decades later as emigrants.  Recreating the intimate atmosphere of traditional storytelling events carried out around a fire, Ghermandi’s performance combines narrations and short readings with traditional Ethiopian songs sung live by her.

Her 2007 debut novel, Queen of Flowers and Pearls, is based on the stories of the Ethiopian patriots fighting against Italian colonial occupation and was the recipient of two awards (Premio Popoli in Cammino – Premio Letterario Armando la Torre, Città di Siderno). It has been translated into several languages.