ROOTS. Santa Rufina in Valle Castellana d’Abruzzo

This text aims to preserve a culture that has been passed down orally for centuries, before sources of information and their witnesses disappear. The stories are tales of lived life that span much of the last century, set in a small patch of land on the border between Abruzzo and Marche, narrated through the eyes and ears of a boy who still proudly lives and wakes up every morning in that place with his family. Love, war, field work, life’s difficulties, and folklore are recounted in the text to keep alive the customs and traditions passed down from generation to generation. Places, families, proverbs, and words in the Abruzzo-Marchigiano dialect accompany the final chapters of the book. The title encapsulates the resilience of those people who still believe in the beauty of life in these places, for those who have remained, for those who are no longer here, and for those who will come after us.