Enrico made his literary debut at the age of 19 with the novel Cuor di Panna (e i suoi amici), which was published by Edizioni Milvia in 1990, and republished in 1999 by Bompiani with its original title Torino Caponord (e il Pinguino Stellato Vestito di Seta).

 

Enrico’s debut novel, Cuor di Panna, narrates the long and magical trip of three Italian teen-agers from Turin, Italy, to Paris, London, Ireland, Scotland, Leningrad (Communist Russia), Finland and ends with the midnight sun at North Cape. Our three fifteen-years old heroes are in full puberty, and in a rush to get somewhere, speeding toward the midnight sun.

 

Are they running away from someone, jumping from one hotel room to another, or escaping their own past?

 

These adventures are surrealistically intertwined with the ones of a child named Remo, who seems to be on the same trip, in the same places, but in the company of a flying golden retriever named Dea and a penguin “dressed up in stars and silk”, making the story a breathless, exhilarating, and ,at times, cruel juxtaposition between childhood and adolescence.