"The book I popoli scomparsi (The Vanished Peoples) presents a series of peoples who have disappeared, or on the verge of disappearing. From Neanderthal Man to the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia, from pre-Columbian civilizations to the subjects of too many collective genocides, the book is built around an archaeological globe. I’m not only aim at giving a plausible representation of each of those peoples, but I also want to show how they fit into a continuous process, made up of victories and defeats, of survivors and losers, and thus to demonstrate how every idea of civilization is always transitory, like the very idea of the end of history, of immanent crisis, of apocalypse."
"I believe in the role played by poetry as a mediation, between our private world and the acts of social life, which are not separated. Just like our personal history cannot be separated from the social history. In fact, what poetry can do is show that there is a common matter in which we move, from which we are inspired. I can just express this attempt as I conceive it in Popoli scomparsi. Whether they are archaeological finds or everyday objects that belonged to us or to our beloved ones, these relics and remains are settled in the depth of our memory, our history, like images or photos. They are part of a matter that is not inert, but it has sown in us, in our families. There are thoughts, feelings – I mean – that remain longer than the people who have possessed them. These objects and these feelings are made real in words, in poetry."
Guido Mattia Gallerani