I difficili anni genovesi nelle opere di Antonio Tabucchi: da "Perdute salme" a "Dolores Ibarruri versa lacrime amare"

The article examines the unpublished novel Perdute salme (1981–82) by Antonio
Tabucchi, preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and its relationship to the
later rewriting in Il filo dell’orizzonte, read against the Genoese context of the Years of
Lead, when the author was teaching at the Università di Genova. Set against the violence of the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) and the Via Fracchia massacre (1980), Tabucchi’s “detective novel” emerges as a metaphysical investigation into identity and death:
the nameless corpse becomes the emblem of a loss that is simultaneously civic and existential. This trajectory also encompasses the short story Dolores Ibarruri versa lacrime amare, where the maternal figure subtly evokes the mothers of young people involved in armed struggle. The motif of tears —both private and historical— links these
works, transforming historical chronicle into a meditation on pain, memory, and the
fragile boundary between innocence and responsibility.