A travelogue revealing the hidden stories of Naples.
 
In recent years Naples has become, for better or worse, the new destination in Italy. While many of its more unusual features are on display for all to see, the stories behind them remain largely hidden. In Marius Kociejowski’s portrait of this baffling city, the serpent can be many things: Vesuvius, the mafia-like Camorra, the outlying Phlegrean Fields (which, geologically speaking, constitute the second most dangerous area on the planet). It is all these things that have, at one time or another, put paid to the higher aspirations of Neapolitans themselves. Naples is simultaneously the city of light, sometimes blindingly so, and the city of darkness, although often the stuff of cliché. The boundary that separates death from life is porous in the extreme: the dead inhabit the world of the living and vice versa. The Serpent Coiled in Naples is a travelogue, a meditation on mortality, and much else besides.
 

Marius Kociejowski is a poet, essayist, and travel writer. He is the author of several books, including The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey and The Pigeon Wars of Damascus.
 

Contents
Chapter One
The Serpent Coiled in Naples
Chapter Two
An Octopus in Forcella
Chapter Three
Street of the Solitary Woman
Chapter Four
The Man Who Watches the Waters
Chapter Five
Street Music
Chapter Six
Leopardi’s Stomach
Chapter Seven
Raimondo di Sangro & the Veil of Knowledge
Chapter Eight
Old Bones
Chapter Nine
The Devil at Play in the Quartieri Spagnoli
Chapter Ten
Signor Volcano
Chapter Eleven
The Life and Death (and life) of Pulcinella
Chapter Twelve
Boom
Chapter Thirteen
The Intimate Lives of Things Inanimate
Chapter Fourteen
The Ghost Palace of Roberto De Simone
Chapter Fifteen
An Infinitesimal Particle of the Universe
Notes
Acknowledgements