New Novel Reimagines Life of Wall Carver Fernando Nannetti

LISLE, IL, UNITED STATES, September 25, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- Maria Rago's debut novel, "Dear Wall," brings to life the story of Fernando Oreste Nannetti, known as NOF4, and the nurse who saved his work. Nannetti, committed to a psychiatric asylum in 1948 and transferred to Volterra's San Girolamo asylum in 1958, was never once visited. Denied paper, he wrote on the wall, and denied a reader, he wrote anyway. His daily entries, signed as NOF4, covered 150 meters of plaster with astral colonels, invented ranks, and cosmic titles, hidden inside which was a quiet ledger of grief for the men disappearing around him.

The novel, a fictionalized account inspired by the true story, imagines the act of attention from the inside through Aldo Ferretti, a nurse who copies the wall into notebooks at his own kitchen table, year after year, at real cost to his family. This nurse's dedication eventually led to the wall being photographed, published, and recognized as one of the great works of outsider art. The novel is now available worldwide in paperback (ISBN 979-8-2408-4782-0) and Kindle edition (ISBN 979-8-2408-4783-7).

Nannetti's actual wall is on public display now in the exhibition "Graffi Profondi" at the Centro Espositivo Santa Maria Maddalena in Volterra, Italy, running through September 27, 2026. A cast of his work is held in the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne. The novel spans 1927 to 2026, drawing closely on the documented record, including the 1980 photographic campaign, the 1985 volume "NOF4: Il Libro della Vita," and Antonio Tabucchi's celebrated 1986 essay that introduced Nannetti to the world.

The preservation efforts continue in Volterra today, with sections of Nannetti's wall saved in initial 2012 and 2019 campaigns, before decades of frost and exposure could finish erasing the rest. The novel arrives at a remarkable moment, as readers can finish the story and, this month, stand in front of the wall itself.