Appendix: Novel

The city that everyone knows and loves, even if they have never been there, connects eight main characters. Most of them would never have known each other if it weren’t for the ninth and, perhaps, the main character – Rome. Against the backdrop of its history, there emerges the Rome of noir, homeless people, illegal immigration, the crisis of European civilization, the search for faith and still unsolved political mysteries leading to the 60s–80s of the last century. The Eternal City contains the destinies of people who brought to it from afar the memory of their childhood – the tuning fork by which the polyphony of this prose is tuned. And since it was written by a poet, its roots are in sound and language. Alexandra Petrova was born in Leningrad. She is the author of poetry collections “The Breakaway Line” (1994), “Residence Permit” (2000, shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize), “Only Trees” (2008, shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize), and the philosophical operetta “Dolly the Shepherds” (2003). Her poems have been translated into English, German, Slovak, Slovenian, and Portuguese. They have been published as a separate book in Italian and Serbian. She lives in Rome.