“Rising at Dawn is a universal message about people all over the world who refuse to give up – those who, with a smile, keep pulling the cart forward out of a sense of duty and a love for a work well done. It is a secular prayer, free of nostalgia or conservatism, and instead deeply inspirational: a hymn to hard work as an antidote to disenchantment, to existential emptiness (which is hardly a problem limited to Gen Z), and as a sense of freedom. An atlas of tenacity, Calabresi’s work stands as a moral counterpoint in an age obsessed with speed and performance – reminding us of the enduring values of commitment, perseverance, and care. And, not least, it is marvelously written – proof, perhaps, that the author himself has done his fair share of hard work at dawn.” – la Repubblica

An illusion has spread to the contemporary world: the idea that it is possible to achieve results and reach goals without fatigue. Nevertheless, recently, a remarkable young woman said something extraordinarily bold to me: “You must adore fatigue”.

An 86-year-old woman wakes up every morning at dawn in a small and typical Italian village to bake cakes, in order to keep alive the dream of the café that she and her husband nurtured for years. A young swimming coach invents new methods to spark children’s passion for the water, teaching them the art of effort and fun. A restorer meticulously dedicates herself every day to bringing back the beauty of Italian art, spending years on every tiny detail of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces.

There is also a heart surgeon, who became a doctor dedicated to his patients, honouring – through his work – the life of his father, who died of heart disease when he was just three years old. And a piano teacher, who takes in his hands the vines on Mount Etna, in Sicily, so that the life’s work of his father will not be buried by lava and forgotten.

These are only some of the stories that fill Mario Calabresi’s new and moving book, a hymn to the beauty of commitment, to the journey of self-discovery and discovery of others that can only happen when we engage fully with reality, embracing both its joys and its hardships.

Travelling across Italy, Calabresi uncovers extraordinary stories in the ordinary, recounting them with the warmth and vibrancy of his prose, always focused on giving voice to remarkable individuals, mirrors of a country and of human experiences often hidden. In an age of instant gratification, Calabresi invites us to rediscover the value of time, patience, and tenacity through a mosaic of lives, taking the readers on a journey without rhetoric and full of hope.