A dead Father Christmas story

A Christmas tale that you were not expecting. The holidays, gifts and Christmas tree are on their way, but Zerocalcare shows us what goes on behind the scenes in the gift business and in all Father Christmas’s hard work. The elves who work at Klauss, his company, complain of their terrible working conditions, just when Father Christmas has gone and the reins of the family business are being taken up by his children: Son Christmas and Daughter Christmas. One day, when Gaetano the pixie is found dead, the elves and gnomes start a trade union protest that has the whole North Pole in a tizzy. There are also the Befana’s delivery riders, on strike with Sardinian coal miners who are in a state of crisis because children prefer gummy bears to coal as gifts in their stockings. The allegorical story is a social critique of workers’ conditions that makes us see the holidays with a touch of sarcasm. A Babbo morto. Una storia di Natale Zerocalcare Bao, 2020