An assembly of elements accompanies the whole narrative: letters, documents, a scientist’s diary.

We also used little tricks, like mentioning parts of a hypothetical encyclopaedia from 2046: the intention was to create an external point of view that would give a sense of perspective, as if the narrated events had happened who knows how long beforehand.

Incidentally, in this novel you also provide a very concise historical compendium of what happened in this alternative world after 1919… That’s why we have plenty of flashbacks and the sequence of the chapters was decided only at the end. In the end we had a great quantity of material that we didn’t even know how to assemble. We had a whole range of very anarchic solutions. Three characters, for example, were merged into one. Having no writing experience, Paolo and I started to sketch out the chapters randomly: the first, then the last, then one in the middle one of us would have an idea and say to the other: no, we’ll cut out this here we need another character. The novel was later published by Mondadori- Urania in the series Millemondi… The title makes reference to phosgene, a gas that was used, unfortunately, on the front in World War I. Paolo began to write some chapters and I followed suit, and, in the mood of two people chatting in a bar, we started to jot down this narrative duet that became an alternative history novel, entitled Ph0xGen!. I answered, none too confident: No, Paolo, I’m a photographer. And he wrote back to me: Yes, it’s true: we should do it together. It would be good to use it as a base for some characters, as well as for a narrative and a secret, a mystery to pique the reader’s interest. Out of the blue he began to compose a historical vision of how different Europe would be if World War I had been won by the Central Powers. Paolo is fond of history, particularly of the Habsburg era he has been living in Vienna for some time now, and we were keeping in touch by e-mail, randomly exchanging ideas and opinions. I was getting on in years when in 2003, because of – or thanks to – Paolo Frusca, a friend and fellow writer, I was dragged into this adventure. You didn’t make your writing debut early… An interview with the writer Italo Bonera (author of the books Ph0xGen!, I’m not like you – Io non sono come voi, and Heaven and Iron – Cielo e ferro) at the Primo Piano Literary Cafe in Brescia, in a meeting with the author organized by our magazine.

I biplani di d'Annunzio by Luca Masali