Nhe was daughter, he was not a wife, It was not a mother as she is convenient. It was a whore. Thus, in a dazzling incipit, the protagonist of When the flowers will have time for mesecond novel by Sara Gambazza, a former nurse who made his debut in 2023, thanks to a literary competition, with There are hands that smell good.
Anita is a prostitute to live, she has two daughters, pink and nymphlives in a dilapidated room in the poorest neighborhood in Parma, the overseas, the first who resists the fascists. We are between 1922 and 1945, war and misery forces extreme choices.
Anita is consumed in a brothel But where he also finds a family and a support network. While Rosa, the eldest daughter, is forced to go to service from the rich after a few years of school, Nymph is considered specialalso thanks to a dark gift, and manages to study, hatching the dream of redemption. The two sisters remain united until the love for a boy separates them. Ninfa escapes to hide a secret, emancipates from her condition of misery but then returns to the village.
Sara Gambazza was born in Parma and lives in Noceto, in the Parma countryside, with her husband, three children, six dogs and two donkeys. He made his debut in the fiction
with the novel “There are hands that smell good” (Longanesi).
The lives of the last, of the invisibles, become epic, make universal in a continuous struggle for dignity. Gambazza stages a troop of wonderful and imperfect women who protect and choose each other, even giving up personal happiness. With an evocative language, of a village, so alive that it becomes a character.
Let’s start from the title. What do you refer to?
It is a verse of poetry I am vertical of Sylvia Plath. It refers to the complicated life of Anita and the other characters and to the continuous hope of being able to look to the future with peace of mind.
Where did you draw inspiration for these women?
From my father’s family, who lived in the poor neighborhood of the underworld. My grandmother was a prostitute, she remained alone with her sister and grew up in extreme misery. I tried to give them a little more of hope than they really had. I also looked for facts and chronicles of the old Parma, I read and listened to recordings of the time.
“When the flowers have time for me” by Sara Gambazza, Longanesi372 pages, € 18.60
She tells minimal, small lives (also in the previous novel). Why do you care about to explore the world of the last?
Because it is mine too and I know it well. I also felt very small, often, and I tried to give me an opportunity. I would struggle to imagine me different realities from this.
Despite appearances, many characters are good mind. But they do everything to hide it. Why?
Because in that context, goodness is a weakness. The people I met as a child were all like this. We had to go on with tough face. My father was neither sweet nor delicate, but he had a thousand attention for everyone, he was generous. But he was unable to say something good or kind.
Ninfa manages to feel in people the smell of death that is about to arrive. What does this power represent?
She who has fallen in that world so miserable of spirituality instead has a direct contact with something enormous, who widens her perspectives and marks the future. Because it is intended for something bigger.
There are many mothers, almost no father. And motherhood seems like a very expensive theme.
I realize that I put it everywhere. I missed the figure of a traditional mother, mine has always been elusive. I struggled to become great, I wanted a lioness mother, who defends children at all costs, just like my characters.
The brothel becomes a small community of mutual aid. And then Ninfa, in his escape, is generously welcomed by a man and his wife. Is it also a novel about the de facto family and not of blood?
Also in this case it is the type of family that I would have liked in my life, beyond the biological ties. For a long time I could not count on a support, then over the years I surrounded myself with people I love.
The war is told only in its direct consequences on the life of the characters. Why this choice?
I wanted to show it through the eyes of these simple people who even understood it. They did not know why they fought, they only knew that the war took away men and resources and that it hung them.
One of his characters says: “We remain what you are.” Even after the redemption, do the roots not forget?
Never. Things change around you, but what you are remains. Ninfa manages to raise her life but for her the bond with the Oltretornte is very important. We are not lacking in the twists and turns and we do not tell them.
But has the ending always been what he had in mind?
Actually no, it has changed. And it is an open ending that might lead me to write a sequel.
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