News
N
etflix will produce a new series titled
Zero, an Italian-language show based
on the work of 27-year-old Antonio
Dikele Distefano, a formerly self-published
Italian author whose books have sold hundreds
of thousands of copies since he signed with
Mondadori.
The Netflix series will follow the adventures
of Zero, the hero from Distefano’s 2018 novel
Non ho mai avuto la mia eta (I was never my
age). Netflix described the forthcoming show
as “an original and unique exploration of the
Milanese suburbs, a rich and diverse world of
underrepresented cultures mixed with rap
elements.” Distefano will work on the script with
Italian comic book artist and screenwriter
Roberto Marchionni, along with a team of other Italian screenwriters; production
begins in 2020.
Distefano is the child of Angolan immigrants, and his novels explore the lives
the children of immigrants. “I show Italian kids that there is not only one way of
being black and that our reality is different from what is shown in TV,” he told PW
via a translated statement. “Second-generation children born in Italy to African
parents who moved to Italy are isolated and considered suspicious by the Italian
kids.”
Distefano’s books fill a void in the Italian publishing scene. “In Italy, we practically
had no literature on the difficulty of being black in an Italian county,” said Emanuela
Canali, the foreign rights manager at Mondadori, discussing the rising international
star. “Certainly, he has become a symbol for immigrant people who live here in Italy.”
Distefano self-published his first novel, Fuori piove, dentro pure, passo a pren-
derti? (It’s raining outside, it’s raining inside. Shall I pick you up?), at age 19. The
novel found its first audience on Amazon. “Self-publishing was the only option for
me,” he said. “I knew that in order to be discovered, I had to establish myself some
way. When I started writing, I studied hard—I studied the best way to self-publish.
Google was my school.”
Impressed by the young author’s writing and self-published sales, former
Mondadori editorial director Antonio Riccardi gave Distefano his card at a literary
festival. “I didn’t even know that Mondadori was the leading Italian publishing
company,” Distefano recalled. Nevertheless, he signed with Mondadori, and Fuori
piove made its traditional publishing debut in 2015.
Aimed at young adults, the novel sold about 100,000 copies, “which is quite a
lot for the Italian market,” noted Canali. Two more novels, also for young adult
readers, followed.
Non ho mai avuto la mia eta was the fourth of Distefano’s books published by
Mondadori and is aimed at adults. The book, Canali said, is “a cross-section of the
lives of young boys and girls, who, like Zero, only got a punch in the face from life.”Formerly Self-Published Italian
Antonio Dikele Distefanohttp://www.doverdirect.com/ixiapressTrade Paper • 320 pp. • 9780486835938 • $16.
September 18, 2019
Trade Paper • 256 pp. • 9780486837376 • $16.
October 16, 2019
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