Mario Casella “L’uragano di pietra” (The Stone Hurricane)

October 2025

Mario Casella
The Stone Hurricane
Novel

The island is Hurricane, a rock off the Atlantic coast north of Boston which, at the beginning of the 20th century, was home to a thousand inhabitants — all stonecutters, most of them Italian immigrants from the border region with Switzerland. Before arriving on the island, many of them had worked in near-starvation conditions in the granite quarries of Canton Ticino, extracting stone for the new Gotthard railway line. It was the end of the 19th century, and even eight-year-old children labored in those hellish conditions. On Hurricane Island, by contrast, the work was less harsh, and the pay better, for those carving granite destined for iconic symbols of American progress — first and foremost: the pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

On this rock, the incredible and partly true destinies of the novel’s protagonists intersect. Giovanni is a boy from Schignano (Val d’Intelvi) who works in the Ticino quarries. But he manages to escape, boarding a ship with his uncle to cross the “Big Pond” and reach America. A few months later, Miranda arrives on the same island with her father, who is forced to leave the Swiss quarries because of his involvement in the labor union movement.

The story of two teenagers swept into the tragedies of emigration — in many ways similar to what happens today across the Mediterranean.

Looming in the background is the shadow of the “Black Hand,” a mafia-style organization that extorted money from Italian immigrants — money earned through sweat and sacrifice.

As John Donne wrote, and Ernest Hemingway later echoed: “No man is an island.” Yet this novel shows how an island can become life itself for many — just like it did for the characters in this story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mario Casella is a journalist, mountain guide, and the author of documentaries and books. Alongside his long-term work with Swiss Italian Radio and Television (RSI), he has always pursued his independent activities as a mountain guide, documentary filmmaker, and writer. His literary output includes several acclaimed books translated into German and French. Among them:
Black-White-Black. A Journey through the Mountains and the History of the Caucasus, Gabriele Capelli Editore (ITAS Trento Prize 2013)
The Weight of Shadows, Gabriele Capelli Editore (Second Prize Leggimontagna 2018 and Mazzotti Prize Mention 2018)
Beyond Dracula. A Winter Journey through the Carpathians, Ediciclo (Cortina Prize 2019)
Barefoot, Gabriele Capelli Editore (Sergio Arneodo Prize 2023)

Further details about his work can be found at http://www.crealpina.ch.

From the cover

“I pick up a pebble, hold it in my fingers for a moment, and then toss it at random at my feet. Is that how fate works? Does chance just throw you wherever it pleases? But someone must be tossing the pebble, right? Is someone to blame? The questions flow like the water of the East River.
I pick up another pebble, even smaller than the first. Small like I was when we left Schignano for America. Alone: just me and pà.
I throw the pebble even farther, not trying to aim it in any particular direction. For a couple of seconds, it flies free through the air. Is that freedom? The freedom embodied by that giant statue I had glimpsed in awe from the deck of our steamer just before setting foot in America? That imposing woman with a torch burning freely, her flame defiant even against the fiercest winds?”

Foreign Rights: gabrielecapellieditore@gmail.com