Writing Beyond History.
An Anthology of Prose and Poetry
Cusmano, 2006
Recensione. 1
Introduction ‑ Journey Beyond
History. 1
di Gloria Chiappani Rodichevski
Canadesi
dalle più o meno lontane origini italiane, le quali hanno lasciato un'impronta
indelebile nel loro modo di essere e nel loro esprimersi attraverso una lingua
letteraria.
Canadesi accomunati da una necessità cogente: scrivere. Non
solo, cioè, scrittori che della scrittura hanno fatto la propria attività
principale, ma anche la più svariata e affascinante fauna professionale:
docenti universitari, jazzisti, critici letterari, attori, cantanti,
traduttori, artisti visuali…
Il risultato di tale comune esigenza interiore è il volume
edito nel 2006 a Montreal da Cusmano: Writing
Beyond History. An Anthology of Prose and Poetry.
Per definire o per descrivere l'operazione compiuta con
questo libro, ricorrerei alla formula: "reculer
pour mieux sauter".
"Reculer": prendere la
rincorsa dal passato; recuperare, cioè, quest'ultimo, forti del proprio io
presente che è il futuro di quello stesso passato; "pour mieux sauter": per procedere
verso un futuro che non dimentichi il passato dal quale deriva. Passato remoto
e prossimo, desidero specificare, in egual misura e di uguale importanza.
Gli scrittori canadesi presenti nel volume sono i
protagonisti di questa rincorsa presa dal passato per vincere un primato carico
di significati nel salto verso il futuro. Sintetizza bene Licia Canton, nella sua Introduction: "This volume is a snapshot of
a literary moment in time: it is our journey back in order to move forward.
Writing Beyond History records our cultural identity in the making and
contributes to our literary history."
Un libro, quello curato da Licia Canton, Delia De Santis e Venera Fazio, che raccoglie scritti in inglese e
in italiano, in prosa e in versi, nei quali l'Italia fa capolino o è la protagonista
indiscussa.
Sono nata e vivo in provincia di Milano, dove i miei nonni e
i miei genitori si trasferirono provenendo da due diverse province della
Lombardia. Quindi i miei parenti hanno affrontato soltanto una sorta di
emigrazione interna e non quella dolorosissima che conduce verso l'ignoto di un
paese straniero e io conosco quest'ultima esclusivamente avendola affrontata
attraverso studi storici o letterari. Dunque per me il volume edito da Cusmano
ha rappresentato un'esperienza pregnante. Tanto più che l'operazione "writing beyond history", ovvero scrivere costi quel che costi, sento
si attaglia perfettamente al mio modo d'essere: anch'io, infatti, avverto
cogente il bisogno di scrivere per comunicarmi e per comunicare.
Cosciente di tutto questo, concluderei con un monito. Non
releghiamo lo scrivere a puro atto estetico. Proponiamoci invece di partire ‑
con la nostra scrittura ‑ da quella storia trascurando la quale
negheremmo irrimediabilmente le nostre radici e giungeremmo in breve a veder
crollare tutti i pali di sostegno, in uno squallido trionfo dell'effimero sé.
Alcune opere tratte dall'antologia, corredate della
biografia degli autori, sono pubblicate in Morfoedro
nella sezione Odisseosofie e nelle sottosezioni dello
"Speciale Canada letterario".
di Licia Canton
They left
Italy and traced a path to Canada for others to follow. A father or grandmother
or great-uncle… alone or with siblings and parents. Their descendants grew up
thousands of kilometres away, but learned about that small town or village back
home. They were encouraged to love it or influenced to hate it. Some were kept
in the dark, links severed by their parents' silence.
Decades
later, that path was travelled in reverse by a group of Canadian women and men
who share the love of writing and a connection to Italy. Canadian writers of
Italian descent came together in the ancient city of Udine in May 2004. They
shared their stories and insights with warm and receptive audiences. The
writers drew from their collective ideas in an attempt to answer questions born
out of a need for transition. Going back has allowed them to move forward as
writers.
Writing
Beyond History is
the literary expression of thirty contributors, including award-winning poets Carmine
Starnino and Mary di
Michele, and prose writers Caterina Edwards, Genni Gunn and Peter Oliva (whose
first published poems appear in this volume). Most of the contributions are in
English, but a few writers share their stories in Italian. Governor General
Award winner Fulvio Caccia
contributes poetry in French.
No matter
the genre ‑ short story, essay, poetry, memoir ‑ or the language
they choose to express themselves in, the familiar comes through in their very
diverse tales. In "Ritorno a Padova,"
Elettra Bedon describes her
voyage in moving poetic prose. Gianna Patriarca's verse takes us to Rovereto
and Piossasco, while Gil Fagiani's
images evoke Naples and Rome. In her dreamy poetry, Sonia Di Placido examines the sacredness of our spiritual space.
The path
towards the making of this anthology gave us an opportunity to interpret our
overlapping emotions for the home of our ancestors and to find creative and
intellectual nourishment. Italy is no longer our physical home ‑ if ever
it was ‑ but it remains our cultural home and a source of inspiration.
By walking
the path together, we went beyond time and place to experience a cultural
communion: we sought inspiration and, in so doing, we inspired. The voyage may
have rekindled forgotten emotions, raised questions or provided answers. Our
communal journey did not end in Udine, nor does it end with this book. Chissà… it will certainly lead to other
projects as well as professional relationships and life-long friendships.
After
Udine, Ralph Alfonso joined Anna Carlevaris and her
group of visual artists in Casacalenda and was
inspired to write "Buonasera da
Campobasso." Jim Zucchero
combined the professional with the familial: he wrote about his family's
Italian adventure in "Venetian Scene." In her personal essay,
Canadian-born Deborah Saidero shares the emotional
struggle she experienced as an adolescent when her family moved back to Italy.
Ken Scambray takes his students to Italy every January (it's a
course requirement). His father has never shown any interest in Ken's frequent
visits across the Atlantic. Italy is the land of pain and resentment for Ken's
father (see "La Storia Nascosta,"
Accenti Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2003).
Many of us can identify with conflicting emotions towards Italy, as does Joseph
Pivato in "Nice Place to Visit But …"
The seed
for this cultural writing project was planted in 2000 when I asked Anna Pia De Luca, professor of Canadian literature in Udine, to
host the tenth biennial conference of the AICW. Four years later, the event was
held at the Canadian Cultural Centre at the University of Udine. This year,
Writing Beyond History is being launched at the Eighth Blue Metropolis
International Literary Festival ‑ The City of Words ‑ in Montreal,
designated by UNESCO as the world book capital for 2005-2006.
Our
ancestors have taught us that willpower is life; there is hope in every
struggle. As intellectuals, as educated women and men who have straddled both
worlds, our task and responsibility is to write. Our struggle is to be
acknowledged and respected. For many, if not most, writing is not the main
source of income and, thus, we are all too familiar with the question "Why
keep writing if it doesn't pay the bills?" Novelist Marisa De Franceschi insists that she "cannot not
write." Darlene Madott ‑ attorney by day
and short-story writer by night ‑ responds, "It is part of my
journey."
This volume
is a snapshot of a literary moment in time: it is our journey back in order to
move forward. Writing Beyond History records our cultural identity in
the making and contributes to our literary history.