Sulla felicità a oltranza

An engaging story in which anyone can recognize themselves.

1993, 1995, 1996 are the years that mark Hugh’s life. The times when his aunt, mother and father, the core of his affections and the foundation on which his world as a young man rested, disappeared. “Very tiring but beautiful years,” as he put it, in which the pain of loss is mixed in the story with the poetry and sweetness of remembering the little things. The loves, adventures, disappearances, joys and sorrows of those who must continue to live poised between sadness and longing for happiness while coming to terms with reinventing themselves and their certainties. “Sulla felicità a oltranza,” a book with which Ugo Cornia made his debut in 1999, revealing himself to be one of the most interesting Italian authors of his generation, is a sweetly melancholy tale, stretched between regret and the will to be happy, an engaging story in which anyone can recognize himself.

Ugo Cornia

Ugo Cornia è nato a Carpi nel 1965.

He began publishing in the magazine Il semplice (1995-1997), edited by Gianni Celati, Ermanno Cavazzoni and Daniele Benati.
His short stories have also appeared in other magazines, such as Il Caffè illustrato, Diario, and L’Accalappiacani. He has collaborated with La Gazzetta di Modena. He made his debut with Sellerio in 1999 with Sulla felicità a oltranza, followed by Quasi amore (Sellerio, 2001), Roma (Sellerio, 2004), Le pratiche del disgusto (Sellerio, 2007), Le storie di mia zia (Feltrinelli, 2008) and Sulle tristezze e i ragionamenti (Quodlibet, 2008)
In 2009 he published with the painter Giuliano Della Casa the volume Modena è piccolissima.
More recent writings include: Operette ipotetiche (Quodlibet, 2010), Autobiografia della mia infanzia (Topipittori, 2010), Il professionale. Scholastic Adventures (Feltrinelli, 2012), Writings of Uncivilized Engagement (Quodlibet, 2013), Animals: (mice cats dogs and my sister) (Feltrinelli, 2014), I am sociable to a fault. Life of Montaigne (Marcos y Marcos, 2015), Holes (Feltrinelli, 2016) and Fables from Reformatory (Feltrinelli, 2019).
He won the Bergamo Prize, the Pisa National Literary Prize for the Fiction section and the Frignano Prize.

His last book is Sulla felicità a oltranza (La nave di Teseo, 2022).