The sinking ship together with the wounds that will never heal represent a fragment of society that shows us how fragile we are and that the only way to come out of the labyrinth is only by sticking together and letting the deepest humanity come to the surface. — La Repubblica

Knowing their stories and hearing their testimonies makes the reader vulnerable. Trincia tells it in perfect tune and empathy with the feelings of the entire humanity on board. — Vanity Fair

The disgust I still feel for what I saw on the ship, there were people who literally stepped and walked over others only to save themselves. The fear has nestled so deep inside me that I have never been on something that floats since the accident. — Omar Brolli, one of the survivors – Newspaper Oggi

After the bestseller Veleno (Einaudi, 2019) that hit the screens of Amazon Prime Video, Pablo Trincia comes back with a heart-to-heart, human-to-human story, putting the pieces of broken lives together.

“We are slaughtering ourselves like sheep, please send someone!”

What would you do if you found yourself trapped on a sinking ship?

Based on a true story.

Shipwreck, the force of nature that reminds us how powerless and fragile we—the rulers of the world—are. A vanishing nothing in the presence of a stupendous might. Swallowed up by nature that triumphs over us.

Pablo Trincia recounts stories of bravery and cowardice, of crashed lives and new beginnings, of thousands of fragmented existences, creating a visceral and cinematic novel written with clear and literary language.

January 13, 2012. The luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia struck an underwater rock, capsized, and sank. Out of 4,253 passengers of 64 different nationalities onboard, there were 32 deaths and 157 wounded. For many, it started out as a vacation; for others, it was a professional occasion. People whose intertwined destinies crossed bridges and corridors of that huge “floating city” that turned into a death trap. Touching stories of many young people from impoverished countries working hard in 20-hour night shifts for a few euros, who find themselves running away in panic with everyone else, because in the face of death, all men are equal.

This is a story of unknown heroes, people who remained on the ship to save as many lives as possible, jeopardizing their own. In only a few seconds, the great avant-garde symbol of progress became a useless raft. “Hard to Starboard, hard to Port!” But it was too late. And then the dramatic and tense crescendo during the collision, the deep impact when all human stories merged and culminated in the fatal deed, the dreaded shipwreck, so vividly depicted that we almost feel the water rising up to our knees.

While the ship’s carcass stands there, whining and helpless, like an immense beached whale exhaling its last breath, in the middle of the immense tragedy, the real human nature is unveiled: fear, cowardice, courage, selfishness, altruism, indifference, empathy.

Based on a true story and documented by testimonies, unpublished interviews, hundreds of recorded depositions, and thousands of report pages.