Acclaimed Author Dacia Maraini Talks About Her Life and Work
Dacia Maraini, an Italian writer whose work focuses on women’s issues, recently spoke about her life during a webinar livestreamed from Italy on July 9, 2020, hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute. ICI Director Emanuele Amendola introduced the accomplished author by noting that she has written numerous plays and novels and has won many awards for her work, including the Premio Strega for “Buio” in 1999. She was also nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Later in the program, Maraini said she has been spending the summer writing in Abruzzo, where she enjoys the serenity of nature and a quieter environment. The ICI director described Maraini as a novelist, poet, dramatist, journalist and, above all, a woman who penned some of the most important works of Italian literature and contemporary fiction.
She has written more than 70 books, which have been translated in more than 30 languages. Even today she is still a prolific writer, and now her latest book is very timely, as it’s based on the plague that devastated Sicily in the 18th century. During this virtual “conversation,” in which Michelangelo La Luna, professor of Italian at the University of Rhode Island, also participated, Maraini explored the themes of her research and literary production, from women’s rights and gender equality to love, freedom and solidarity at a time that she says calls for reflection on ourselves and our roles in the world. Maraini was born in Fiesole, Tuscany, to a Florentine father and a Sicilian mother.
When she was a child, her family moved to Japan in 1938 to escape fascism. But they were interned in a Japanese concentration camp in Nagoya for refusing to recognize Mussolini's Republic of Salò, allied with the Empire of Japan. She recalls being put in the concentration camp in Nagoya, Japan, in 1943-45 as a young girl. Before then, she said she had happy memories of being in Hokaido with snow almost yearround. She said because the Japanese considered her anti-fascist parents as enemies and traitors since they refused to swear allegiance to Mussolini, her family was treated harshly. She remembers being able to squeeze through
The writer spent a period of the lockdown in Abruzzo writing her latest book, “Trio.” She said the silence of nature and walks inspire her creativity. Her home lies a few kilometers from the center of Pescasseroli.
the camp’s fence because of her small size to go pick tomatoes and potatoes for the nearby farmers so she would be given a few to bring back to her family in the camp. She recalls that every day she was surprised to be alive. Later, she would write poems including “Crudeltà all’aria aperta.” When the camp was liberated, she remembers that the Americans treated them very well. Maraini said she has returned to Japan a number of times and has fond memories of the Japanese people before and after the war — just not the Japanese soldiers. After the war ended, the family returned to Italy and lived in Sicily with her mother’s family in Bagheria. Not long after the war, her parents separated and her father moved to Rome where, some years later, at the age of 18, Maraini joined him. She was educated at a prestigious boarding school in Florence, then she started writing in Rome in 1962 and founded the Teatro della Maddalena in 1973 as a theater for women only.
She married Lucio Pozzi, a Milanese painter, but they separated after four years. She then became novelist Alberto Moravia's companion, living with him from 1962 until 1983. “Bagheria,” written in 1993, is Maraini's only autobiographical work to date although she revealed that she plans to write a memoir of her time in the concentration camp in Nagoya during World War II, adding, “memories are our soul.” The story of Maraini’s life was told in Irish Braschi's biographical documentary “I Was Born Travelling,” which focused in particular on her imprisonment in the concentration camp in Japan during WWII and the journeys she made around the world with her partner Alberto Moravia and close friends Pier Paolo Pasolini and Maria Callas. During the program, Maraini recalled the time spent with her great friend and traveling companion Pier Paolo Pasolini, with whom she said she once traveled to Africa to scout movie locations. He had planned to film the story of Orestes, based on a great Greek tragedy, but she said unfortunately the money was cut off because the financiers doubted there would be enough interest in a movie with African actors. She said that Pasolini instead ended up making a documentary.
Her other works include “The Silent Duchess,” “Mafia and Other Plays,” “A Christmas in the Snow Globe” (about her first Christmas after the war), “Il treno dell’ultima notte” and “Tre donne: una storia d’amore e disamore.” She has been awarded a number of honorary degrees, including from the Università dell’Aquila, John Cabot University and the University of Bucharest. Although Maraini states she is a feminist only in the fact that she is always on the side of women, much of Maraini's work has been classified as feminist.
It was noted that the nature of her work evolved in line with women's changing position in Italian society and exposed the use and abuse of power and its effects on women. The writer, who lives in Rome, said she takes refuge in Abruzzo during holidays and in summer, but this year she spent a period of the lockdown in Abruzzo writing her latest book, “Trio.” She said the silence of nature and walks inspire her creativity. Her home lies a few kilometers from the center of Pescasseroli (see related article in this Notiziario on page 12). This ICI webinar also marked the release in Italy of her new novel “Trio,” a story of friendship between two women set in Messina, Sicily, during the plague of 1743. The book was released in early July but has not yet been translated into English.
Maraini said she has always emphasized reading as important for creating landscapes, images in our minds, as the creative side of imagination — so you can imagine the pain of other people leading to solidarity, empathy and generosity. “Depersonalization” is the worst thing in the world to her, and she sees books bringing the opposite, “personalization.” She explained that her latest book, “Trio,” is a historical narrative for which she did the research some time ago but decided to write the story during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the story of two women friends and a man during the plague in Messina in 1743-44.
She notes that the plague was brought by sailors to Messina, and the virus spread despite the deaths of many of the sailors and the destruction of their ship. She said she had found a chronicle about the plague and was impressed by the horror in that beautiful city where 70 percent of the people ended up dying. She pointed to the similarities between then and now, and she said the plague creates terrible things, such as the tendency to be fearful and suspicious of everybody. Instead of confronting the reality, there is a need to pin the responsibility on somebody, she said, resulting in conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, she added, in those situations, entire countries behave like children who don’t care about consequences. But on the other hand, she said, are the wonderful people who care for others, even risking their lives. Italian young people, she noted, have become volunteers in many wonderful ways, and she hopes that will continue. In concluding her talk, she said she “hopes that people who care about the future will become a majority, but right now they are frequently the minority.” Commenting on the situation with the pandemic, Maraini said tazzalini di caffè with your friends is very different from a caffè alone. ❚