Carlo Fossati: My heart beat like a hammer

The English edition of “My heart beat like a hammer” [the title is after a song by Jeremy Spencer, published in the “Fleetwood Mac” album, 1967] has been published in a limited edition of 80 copies in September 2019. This book has 60 pages (with a b/w picture) in the format 13 x 19 cm. Translations by Laura Culver, Valentina Maffucci, Cristina Travaglini.

In the author’s own words: “This collection of short texts is rather heterogeneous, though I believe they have some things in common. For example, they all describe something that was already there, or had happened, when I wrote about it, rather than anticipating, or foreseeing something that still had to happen. All of them could be defined as experiential texts, and when I had to decide what title to give the collection, I had considered this expression. Which is not always absolutely precise or pertinent for all the texts, since in some cases, my experience has been of a work, therefore not a first hand experience (the text on Stanley Brown may be an exception, because I came across his work by chance, it was actually a completely casual and unexpected encounter, as happened to the protagonist of The Walk by Robert Walser). Then, many texts are related to the history of e/static (opening the collection, according to a chronological order, is the text on the first exhibition by Julius in 2001), but it seemed to me that a choice too unbalanced regarding this aspect would have given the collection a reminiscent, or even nostalgic, nature that I absolutely wanted to avoid. So I didn't hesitate to include texts that have nothing to do with e/static ”.

Among about 50 authors appearing in the book, in strict order of appearance (respecting the chronological order of the texts included in the collection): Rolf Julius, Paolo Piscitelli, Steve Roden, Tehching Hsieh, Cormac McCarthy, Terry Fox, Alan Lamb, Miki Yui, Dominique Petitgand, Loren Chasse, Michael Graeve, Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna, Giovanni Anselmo, Manuele Cerutti, Otis Redding, Stanley Brouwn, Bill Evans, Akio Suzuki, Alessandro Quaranta, Giovanni Morbin, Alis/Filliol, Robert Bresson.