Autumn 1942, Siberia. Red Army Sergeant Dorotov planned the trip in every detail. It will start from Tyumen and cross a series of urban centers to escape the dangers of the countryside that could hide agents of the counter-revolution. There was only one aim: to remove Lenin's embalmed body from the control of the Soviet authorities, which was hastily moved from Moscow threatened by the Nazi invasion.
Together with Sergeant Dorotov there are the private Antonov, fresh from a lobotomy after having noticed a certain mobility in the venerable corpse, and Olga, a woman with green and stubborn eyes that seem to suggest to those around her the urgency of a marriage to extinguish that impudence in his gaze. Hot on the heels of the three was the impetuous advance of General Hoth's fourth German armored army.
Thus begins for Dorotov and his companions a physical and mental pilgrimage across Great Russia, an adventure of thought in search of uncorrupted morality, total ideological integrity, the absence of the faults that ruined socialism. In other words, of a utopian and perfect world. One where not even death exists anymore: the People's Republic of Leninesia.
Exactly one hundred years after Lenin's death on 21 January 1924, Francesco Pala takes inspiration from the father of the Russian Revolution to give life to a powerful, visionary, philosophical and very entertaining novel, winner of the sixth edition of the Neri Pozza Prize. "Lenin's Last Journey" (Neri Pozza, 2024, Euro 18, pp. 288. Also Ebook), in fact, is a picaresque, cultured and ironic adventure that tells us about a desire that unites us all: to live forever.
We asked Francesco Pala, originally from Nuoro, first of all how the story narrated in the novel came about: «It was born from the need to talk about a world completely different from ours. A universe immersed in overwhelming and all-encompassing passions. I asked myself: what can a human being become when hit by the disruptive force of an ideal overturn? What hidden powers can joining a company that asks you to conquer the impossible be unleashed? How much pain, love, courage, suffering can a person in love with a dream endure?".
