The editor asked many writers what drove them to dig into our recent past, and how, according to their inspirations and vocations, they went about it: an invitation to explore the past and the way it created and shaped our present, taken up by authors such as Nicola Lagioia, Roberto Saviano, Antonio Scurati, Walter Siti, Elena Ferrante, Wu Ming 1, Antonio Pascale, Alessandro Leogrande and Benedetta Tobagi. Their answers are set in dialogue with the work of Italian photographers of the same generation, committed to telling the country: snapshots of an Italy at a standstill and an Italy on the move, of a country that has a past and struggles to find a future. The photographic stories are by Tommaso Bonaventura and Alessandro Imbriaco, Giulio Piscitelli, Francesca Leonardi, Tommaso Ausili, TerraProject, Gianni Cipriano, Alessandro Toscano, Luca Campigotto, Nicolò Degiorgis, Emiliano Mancuso and Manuela Meloni.