Lettere a Nour

“Why didn’t I foresee this?” A father questions his daughter’s choice. Raised in a liberal and enlightened milieu, young Nour has fled to Syria to join the Islamic State jihadist she is in love with. Now, her erudite Muslim father agonizes over her absurd decision. A chunk of his life has suddenly disappeared, gone off to kill in the name of a god, his same god. These complex issues are delicately tackled in an epistolary novel by French-Moroccan Islamologist Rachid Benzine, published in 2016, at a time when France was being severely hit by terrorism. Giorgio Sangati now adapts the novel for the stage in a national première featuring an unusual pair: a monstre sacré, Franco Branciaroli, and a young hope, Marina Occhionero, accompanied by Marco Zanotti with his compositional acumen.