Meet the Author Giampaolo Matrone: Interview and Book Signing

62 hours under the snow

A disaster still without culprits

On 18 January 2017, during a wave of cold weather and heavy snowfall, an avalanche hit the Rigopiano-Gran Sasso Resort hotel near the Abruzzo town of Farindola. At the moment of impact, there are forty people inside the hotel, including guests and staff members, who are submerged and trapped by a wall of snow, debris and rubble. It will take a long time to pull out all 11 survivors: the last one extracted, pastry chef Giampaolo Matrone, remains trapped in that inferno for 62 hours. Among the bodies of the 29 victims was that of his wife, Valentina. The structure, built in a high-risk location, had already ended up under investigation because it was considered illegal, but the investigations following the disaster ended with few convictions and many questions still unanswered. This book bears witness to the horror and anger of those who, after that nightmare of snow and silence, never stopped demanding justice and truth for those who remained and for those who are no longer there.The testimony of a survivor of the terrible avalanche that took the lives of 29 people

‘Everything disappeared in an instant: your wife's face, the voices beside you, the reflections of the snow on the hotel windows. Then suddenly it was only darkness.’

Newton Compton Editions