Emma, Flaubert and other obsessions.
Spoilt, selfish, capricious, indolent, careerist. Or: champion of Desire, the fundamental drive that moves every human being, which in her is all-encompassing to the point of guiding her every action, from love affairs to final suicide. Of all the heroines of literature, few are able to divide readers' opinions as much as Emma Bovary.
Antonella Lattanzi, one of Italy's greatest contemporary writers, fell in love with Emma. More than once, with each re-reading of Flaubert's masterpiece, at different, and always crucial, periods of her life. Madame Bovary is the book of her heart, and Emma for her almost an obsession. The same unquenchable desire that moves Emma, Lattanzi feels it as her own, so much so that she thinks if not ‘Madame Bovary is me’ at least ‘Emma is my sister’.

Following the thread of this elective affinity, Lattanzi, with his passionate and elegant style, takes us on a journey into the psyche of Flaubert's heroine, a journey in which her life and the fictional one of the character intertwine, showing us how Flaubert's work and obsessive care for writing illuminate a path that concerns other books, films, songs, from Anna Karenina to the documentary Deep Water, from Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano to Beppe Fenoglio. Understanding Other People's Hearts reveals once again Lattanzi's talent, his hypnotic, exciting and precise writing, capable of exploring the depths and heights of the human soul as only great literature can.