Commedia Mortale by Wayne Holloway

Liguria, Italy. In a mountain village sits an old farmhouse that stores the memories of those who have lived there and suffers the tales of the visitors who come and go. The house weaves its magic on all who encounter it.

New owners move in and over time become entangled with a parade of oddball characters. From pagan ritual to the antics of modern village life, the clash between outsiders and locals, Commedia Mortale seeks to understand what is authentic in both: the tall tales of ageing Second World War Partisans, the dreams of a chef to travel to parts unknown supported by a Greek chorus of drunks, a talking parrot, and asylum-seeking footballers with their own dreams, and miraculously a visit to the village by Anthony Bourdain himself. 

Parsed through the eyes of a film maker, the ultimate outsider, Commedia Mortale summons dreams of kinship and nightmares of enmity. Ranging across philosophy, food, history, love, loss and landscape, Holloway conjures up a unique portrait of a place, the fables of its past and the dilemma of how to live now.

About the author

Wayne Holloway is a writer and director living in London. After studying Philosophy at the University of Essex in the 1980s he started his career making music videos for the likes of Sinead O Conner, Awsad, and Shane McGowan, before moving into commercials and film work, writing in the margins. He is the author of Land of Hunger (Zero, 2015), Bindlestiff (Influx, 2019) and Our Struggle (Influx, 2022).

Paperback ISBN: 9781914391545

Ebook ISBN: 9781914391552

Publication date: April 2025

Formats: Paperback / eBook