Federica Cabras, “Dannata”

As we now know, the favorite genres of the Ogliastra writer Federica Cabras are the lively and conversational chicklit and the dark and tormented horror. “Damned”, her latest effort for O.D.E. Edizioni, belongs to the latter canon.

Maddalena Sirigu is beautiful, dynamic and with a good job. She has recently separated from a childish husband, married only because she was pregnant, who, however, cheated on her. She has a two-year-old daughter who is the apple of her eye, whom she madly loved since conception. During her little girl’s birthday party, thechild, temporarily entrusted to her paternal grandmother, swallows a sausage canapé and chokes. She dies in an instant, without anyone being able to do anything to save her. Before, she was there, now, she is no longer there, before, she smiled, she pouted, she ran on her chubby legs and now she lies decomposing in a coffin.

Devastated by a superhuman and unnatural pain, Maddalena no longer has any reason to continue breathing and letting her heart beat, unless… unless she manages to get back what she has lost, to bring the deceased child back to life. To do so, to no longer feel her excruciating suffering and monstrous emptiness, she is willing to do anything, even to follow the darkest and most horrid path, to come to terms with absolute Evil.