The Wonderful Mirror – Preface

This little book was written and illustrated by us: Cristina Làstrego and Francesco Testa. We are a couple in love, united in our daily work.
After collaborating on many books and animated films for children, we decided to put together this dreamlike and fantastical autobiography, invented and written at different moments in our long life, referring to events that really happened. It is based on notes written by us, but at the same time by different people each time, changed by the passing of the years and our relationships with others.
Our history has been punctuated by unusual moments and interesting encounters. They have allowed us to glimpse events that cannot be explained by common sense and current opinions: what follows is a story of words and images that recounts the most magical aspects of a shared existence.
The mirror, with the fracture that suggests a split between ordinary reality and its double reflection, is a symbol of these events.

We recount turning points that interrupted the normal flow of life, inviting us to reflect and pursue fragments of heretical understanding that can take us far. Without fear of glimpsing unknown abysses not yet illuminated by research, guided by critical curiosity and the desire to go beyond the superstition of those who deny reality to what is uncomfortable to accept in the absence of an established official explanation.

We also recount, with a touch of self-irony, an impossible science fiction dream about the destiny of humanity in outer space, beyond the limits of Earth. A dream, sometimes pursued and sometimes forgotten, which, amid many doubts, has accompanied us throughout our lives.

In the various chapters, which follow one another in the order in which they came to mind rather than chronologically, many mirrors are presented, more mental than physical, in which the reader is also invited to look at themselves, diving beyond their surface in search of that secret parallel world that concerns only them.