Lenin’s Fisherman

Inspired by the true story of Lenin’s time in Capri, where the seeds of the revolution took root.

Blending rigorous historical fact with narrative fiction, and the present day with the dawn of the 20^th century, Lorenzo Beccati crafts a novel based on a specific episode in the life of the world’s most famous Russian revolutionary: Lenin’s brief sojourn on Capri before the fateful events of October 1917. The days of the future father of the Soviet Union unfold amidst boat trips to the Faraglioni rocks, strolls through the piazetta, chess matches with fellow party members, a clandestine romance, and gala dinners aboard the yacht of the Krupp steel magnates. Anto ‘o Muto, a solitary fisherman and true-blue anarchist, stubbornly wins his friendship. The fisherman is capable of great devotion, yet also of throwing Lenin’s conscience into turmoil. Through him, the Russian discovers unknown – and at times dark – facets of the Neapolitan island and of his own revolutionary soul. History tells us that Lenin returned home and gave birth to a nation and a movement; but what happened to the fisherman…