Books of dialogue

Seek Peace
by David Maria Turoldo
edited by Luigi Giario,
Castelvecchi, 2023
Friar of the order of the Servants of Mary, poet and writer, Turoldo actively participated in the Resistance during the occupation of Milan. Through books, collaborations with newspapers, magazines and television, his voice has accompanied the main events of contemporary history, as a critical-prophetic conscience. In his last years marked by a serious illness, after long misunderstandings with the ecclesiastical authorities, he was rehabilitated by Cardinal Martini who asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Church for having made him suffer, solemnly stating that "we must honor the prophets when they are alive". In this collection of his most significant texts on peace, he pronounces disruptive words, directed especially to young people, animated by a genuine and overwhelming strength and passion.


The boy with the bamboo heart
The extraordinary journey of a Thai orphan from the street to the creation of an NGO
by Amporn Wathanavongs with Chantal Jauvin,
Effatà Editrice, 2024
At five years old, alone, in a rural Thai village, Lek barely survives in the markets of Surin until, at fifteen, he finds himself a soldier in the Cambodian jungle. Desperation leads him to try to kill himself twice, but a stranger intervenes and offers him hope. Thanks to the generous support of a Jesuit missionary, he manages to have a family, an education and a respectable job in the field of social work. He finds his true calling in helping others by creating the Foundation for Rehabilitation & Development of Children and Family (FORDEC) which will lead him to become an adoptive father to over 50 thousand Thai children.


The diehards of peace
Stories of those who do not surrender to the war in Israel and Palestine
by Chiara Zappa,
preface by Noa,
TS Edizioni, 2024
Layla is Palestinian, Robi is Israeli. Both have lost a child in the conflict that has devastated the Middle East for decades. They met in the Parents' Circle association, a forum of Israeli and Palestinian families that for years has promoted paths of reconciliation between people who have lost a relative in the struggle. The volume collects powerful stories of reconciliation and hope. Stories of those who work for peace within courageous non-governmental organizations - apolitical, non-partisan, secular - in which Israelis and Palestinians often collaborate, often hindered by their own governments.


Those who believe are not bourgeois
Why holiness is within everyone's reach
by Jean de Saint-Cheron,
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2024
The author is a young French intellectual who has opened a delicate question. "For a Christian it is decidedly impossible to be a bourgeois, that is to say a biped not animated by a greater urgency than that of taking refuge in a quiet digestive calm." A believer, even if “bourgeois”, will always be different from another who could remotely be placed in this category, also because within “bourgeois” homes there are variants that are called clinical and psychic suffering. The author presents faith not only as observance of precepts, but as a fight against the apparent senselessness of existence.


Aurora Antonucci
NP December 2024