La Piazza San Francisco Italian Literary Festival | The Darkest Winter (UC Davis)

In Nazi-occupied Italy during the final winter of World War II, investigator De Luca is forced to solve a brutal murder under impossible pressure. The Germans threaten to execute ten hostages unless the killer is found quickly, pushing De Luca into a race against time through a city filled with fear, political tension, and shifting loyalties. As he follows the trail of violence, he must navigate corruption, danger, and the moral compromises of life under a collapsing regime.

CARLO LUCARELLI
Carlo Lucarelli (Parma, 1960) is the author of novels, essays, and screenplays. Among his books published by Einaudi, Almost Blue (1997), Un giorno dopo l’altro (2000), Guernica (2000), Nuovi misteri d’Italia (2004), La mattanza (2004), Piazza Fontana (2007), L’ottava vibrazione (2008), L’ispettore Coliandro (2009), I veleni del crimine (2010), L’ispettore Grazia Negro (2013), Albergo Italia (2014), Carta bianca (2014), Il tempo delle iene (2015), L’estate torbida (2017), Peccato mortale (2018), Navi a perdere (2018), L’inverno piú nero (2020), Via delle Oche (2021), Léon (2021), Autosole (2022), Almeno tu (2025) and Nei luoghi piú oscuri (2025). He has hosted television programs about crimes and mysteries for many years. His books are translated into several languages and have been adapted into films and TV series, including the cycle dedicated to Commissioner De Luca and the series L’ispettore Coliandro.

MICHAEL SUBIALKA
Michael Subialka is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian at the University of California, Davis. His work focuses on Italian modernism and its global circulation through translation. He is co-editor of the volume Gabriele D’Annunzio and World Literature: Multilingualism, Translation, Reception (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) and co-directs, together with Lisa Sarti, the digital edition of the first complete English translation of Novelle per un anno by Luigi Pirandello (pirandellointranslation.org). He is co-president of the Pirandello Society of America and once again director of California Italian Studies.

ERIC RUSSELL
Eric Louis Russell is Professor of French and Italian at the University of California, Davis, where he is affiliated with the programs in Linguistics and in Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies. His academic work examines language as a social practice shaped by power and identity. He has published many books and articles on these topics, including Fighting Words! A Critical Approach to Linguistic Transgression (2024) and Alpha Masculinity: Hegemony in Language and Discourse (2021). He works across Anglophone, Francophone, Italophone, and Netherlandophone environments as he examines questions of gender and sexuality in language, taboo and transgressive forms of speech, and linguistic privilege and ideology. He collaborates internationally with multiple institutions, including the Università degli Studi di Trieste, and he has been featured on the award-winning podcast The Vocal Fries (May 14, 2024). In his teaching, Professor Russell offers courses that explore language as a lived cultural experience, including classes on Italian dialects, queer linguistic cultures in Italy, and critical approaches to language and identity. He is particularly committed to mentoring students at all levels and serves as Faculty Advisor for Italian majors and minors at UC Davis, supporting their academic and professional development – along with their linguistic development.

Ph. credits: Francesca Cassaro