First and intense literary experiment for the journalist Daria Bignardi, “Non vi lascerò orfani” (‘I Won’t Leave Any Orphans Behind’), a book re-construcing a family’s entangled relationship through the memories of an intrusive and unbearable mother.
The curtain drops on “Women’s Fiction Festival” on a cool autumn Sunday.
An exceptional guest, welcomed to the local concert hall ‘ Auditorium’, Daria Bignardi, came to Matera to present her autobiographical book “Non vi lascerò orfani” ‘(I Won’t Leave Any Orphans Behind’): a journalist and a TV anchorwoman from Ferrara, with her first literary experiment, selling millions of copies in Italy, living in Milan since she was 23. The story told in the book is a family portrait, an ordinary one, with both penniless and well-off relatives, with their assets and mean achievements, as well as their freakish styles which enliven the narrative.
Everything starts with a family mourning: Giannarosa’s death occurred less than a year ago. She was an incredible mother like all the mums who do everything: she was fantastic, generous but also terrible and unbearable for her continuous intrusiveness.
She was nicknamed CIA (after the American Intelligence service), because she managed to know everything anytime, even to call Daria anywhere she was when cellulars were rare.
The relationship between Daria and her mother was turbulent, it was a continuous struggle, but so hard that Daria was made to live away from her to assert and defend herself. Her parents were old and conservative: they were demanding for her and her sister Donatella, mutually attached to each other.
Both grand and authoritarian in her appearance and educational manners, mother Giannarosa had been a “troublesome” mother, always worried about Daria, with no room for optimism, so incredibly attached to her daughter that she even postponed her kindergarten school: she couldn’t stand separation from her child.
As a matter of fact, Daria had to reconstruct her own family tree starting from her mother’s death. Definitely and successfully, she has been able to trace back all the extraordinary family members, real and normal, like her uncle, a clergyman, her crazy cousin, etc.
The narration is direct and loose, rich in her childhood memories, her own roots, so distant in time but so live to her.
We learn from her that we are what we were in our childhood and childhood shapes us so deeply and dramatically inside ourselves, and forever.
However, Daria has fully understood how much such a strong family has determined her responsiveness to the world.
She wrote this book to mean that family affection is of utmost importance. She evoked it in her novel , set in Ferrara in the ‘70s and ’80, where the stories of the characters’ lives disclose their universe - their births, growths, love affairs, jobs and deaths.
To Daria death is crucial, because it makes life important, marking its limitations and excesses. She claims that the beginning and the end of someone’s life are basic, just like the narrative of a book, between the two life plays its role.
During the lecture, Daria talked about her life, her experiences arousing curiosity and interest among the audience: in one’s life you never come to an end, and anyone is a life-long learner.
Now she has to learn to assert herself against the absence of an intrusive mother, but a mother, first of all.
Translated by Veronica Mestice
class II C
Liceo Classico "Duni"-Matera (Italy)
Guest of honour at “Women’s Fiction Festival, Daria Bignardi, the well-known TV journalist.