The end of the night, the start of a new day, or perhaps neither one nor the other. 4.00 a.m. are simply three numbers that line themselves up on the radio alarm clock when everything is asleep, or almost.

Attempting to unravel the mystery of this hour before the dawn are the stories that four young European writers Paul Brodowsky, Gabriele Dadati, Owen Martell, Céline Robinet have contributed to this anthology for Scritture Giovani.

4.00 a.m. is the topic chosen by Festivaletteratura 2009 to represent the new voices of European fiction. This is the start of a journey that will take Brodowsky, Dadati, Martell and Robinet on a series of “wake up calls”, each in their own particular style of writing, to the public of the major European festivals: Festivaletteratura, The Guardian Hay Festival and internationales literaturfestival berlin.

Devised to promote young European talent, Scritture Giovani exemplifies Festivaletteratura and its other festival partners’ commitment to the discovery and promotion, started in 2002, of new writing. The concept of Scritture Giovani is to exist without boundaries and, as in the past few years, Scritture Giovani also offers hospitality to an author from a different language - this year French writer Céline Robinet.