The journey of Einar
The day of 21 January was an opportunity for the pupils of the fourth and fifth classes to get to know a special teacher, a teacher who, with great passion, succeeded in teaching children and adults to read and write, but also to love reading and writing.
Maestro Alberto Manzi was convinced that it was ‘never too late’ to learn and firmly believed that reading, writing, learning, discovering, were the first tools to turn to in order to become autonomous and aware individuals.
On the occasion of the centenary of Maestro Alberto Manzi’s birth and thanks to the opportunity offered by the Villa Leopardi Library, the children of the Swiss School in Rome visited the exhibition on the Maestro held at the European Library and participated in the presentation of his unpublished book ‘Il lungo Viaggio di Einar’, Gallucci 2024.
Through the narration of an exceptional storyteller, Massimo Manzi, the Maestro’s son, the children listened to two captivating stories: Einar’s story but above all that of his ‘literary daddy’.
‘Telling a story is a bit like finding shelter…’ said Einar, and the children learned with curiosity about the Maestro’s life, his travels, his everyday life and the much more mysterious story of the manuscript initially given to print by a German publisher. The thousands of hypotheses about the disappearance or possible whereabouts of the manuscript formulated at the meeting constitute the subject of a new story, because listening to stories teaches one to create new ones, including those of the many Einar’s one has the opportunity to meet in the course of one’s life.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)