Fronte di scavo

In August 1962, in the exact center of Mont Blanc, the last granite barrier separating Italy from France was demolished. The workers endured collapses, delays and unforeseen events, proceeding inch by inch for 5800 meters, immersed in mud, exposed to hemorrhages of water that shatter the rock. In the belly of the mountain all men seem small. But Ettore feels that that visionary undertaking concerns him, because there is an excavation front inside him too, and that wonderful crazy thing is worth a lifetime. At the beginning of the 1960s, hundreds of men were engaged in the largest "geographical surgery" operation of the post-World War II period: the Mont Blanc tunnel. They must proceed quickly, and above all straight, otherwise the Italian and French tunnels will not meet. Ettore is a city man, called to the valley to participate in the project. Calculations and measurements are his daily bread, engineering his profession; suddenly he is thrown into a scenario that broadens his mind and breath. Together with him there are Hervé, a foreman of few words who knows every secret of those paths, and Nina, indomitable, who works in the canteen and is alone with a small son. The excavation front advances, while Ettore learns to know them and himself, slowly matching his rhythm to that of the mountain. The White Queen is fickle and capricious, she sleeps for days, but in the strange game of conquest and seduction she plays with the workers she can transform the tunnel into a battlefield. With very clear writing, Sara Loffredi guides us into the depths of the mountains and men, and shows us an epic page of our history, written by a Europe that has just emerged from the war but is capable of looking to the future with confidence.