Dacia Maraini illuminates women's writing
The memory of herself and her family in the tragic years of the Second World War, that of friends and intellectuals such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, a Meridiano (which at bottom obeys precisely the exercise of memory and the need to preserve it in the most accurate form possible), the memory of her intense relationship with Piera degli Esposti in Amiche, from the Controparola group, and now Scritture segrete, a veritable map of female authors who have left their mark over the centuries. Yet often obscured, ignored or undervalued. Dacia Maraini's gaze, in her latest books, dwells on what has been, on the figures who have accompanied her, on what they teach us and still speak to us.
Of course, she does so with the strength of an experience that is few in number (she turned 89 less than a month ago) and with her trademark: the pace of storytelling, nourished by a use of words that is always fine and reflective, and a sensitivity that leads her to investigate the female universe to give it the place it deserves. Secret Writings, in some ways, condenses several of Maraini's interests and characteristics. In addition to the women's cause, there is a love of reading, a taste for discovery, journalistic synthesis, and generosity in promoting the 'fellow women'. The volume collects texts written over the last fifty years, essentially taken from newspapers (within which her activity has been prolific and constant: the oldest piece, here, dates back to 1968 and is a gem, an interview with Natalia Ginzburg for 'Vogue').
It all stems from the observation that women read, and she herself, Dacia Maraini, recounts that even as a young girl she devoured many classics. "By the age of fifteen, I had read all of Conrad, my all-time favourite, all of Henry James, all of Proust, all of Dostoevsky, all of Verga, all of Pirandello, all of Faulkner, all of Beckett, whom I wanted to resemble with all my being for years," explaining that she had the ability to immerse herself in reading in the most unexpected situations, even while queuing for the ski lift. "One day, however, I asked myself: but where are the mothers? I have the fathers around me, they have kept me company, fascinated me and fallen in love', but there was no trace of women's voices. Rarely offered by libraries, neglected by critics and in anthologies, they did not emerge from the shadows in which they were confined.
Ever since then, therefore, the idea of giving them their rightful place has been working inside Dacia Maraini. And to those who say 'superficially that parity has been achieved' because today there are so many of them and they are recognised, she replies that this applies to the market, not to 'the places where literary values are established, where models for the next generations are created'. Secret Writings indicates a trace, offers a mosaic that however - Maraini warns - cannot be considered complete, because it is necessarily circumscribed to the specific moments in which the texts were born.
Some eighty female protagonists can be found, starting with the Carthaginian Vibia Perpetua and her diary in Latin, and ending with Michela Murgia. Italian and foreign voices to whom very short texts are sometimes dedicated, in some cases reviews of their recently published books, or portraits on the occasion of an anniversary, or even a memory triggered by their disappearance.
