Goodbye, Ramona: the book recommended by Serena Dandini

Rtell, tell and continue to tell. It seems like a small thing but instead literature, cinema and art in general are still the most powerful means for restoring the truth of history and never stop being indignant, if necessary.

And above all, continue to reflect and make sense of our destiny on Earth, a planet that honestly excites me more than the entire galaxy, with all due respect to the recent Orion expedition around the Moon.

There are those who have the magic touch for this ancient work like the Catalan writer Montserrat Roig which – I confess – I didn’t know but today, thanks to the beautiful translation by Amaranta Sbardella, she has arrived in bookstores in Italy with her debut novel, from 1972: Goodbye, Ramona (Mondadori), the first of a trilogy set in Barcelona.

There are three protagonists and all three are called Ramona, respectively grandmother, daughter and granddaughter and they accompany us on a breathless excursion through the history of Spain. A journey that starts from the end of the nineteenth century following in the footsteps of the progenitor who, although she belongs to a privileged social class, is not free from anxieties and continues with the more mysterious and submissive voice of the daughter who finds herself surviving in a Barcelona devastated by civil war, up to the last Ramona who captures the glimmers of an unstoppable change in the Sixties still marred by Franco’s dictatorship.

Monserrat Roig, who died prematurely in 1991, was a committed and uncomfortable feminist and journalistas they say about people who without filters decide to bear witness to their time. And if you too, like me, are passionate about the small events which, crossing history with a capital S, tell us about it better than many dedicated essays, this book is ideal.

The writer’s voice is so seductive that you will be captivated by its overbearing and modern prose, participating in the desires, disappointments and rebellions of the protagonistsand who lived through a century in which women’s dreams were not contemplated.

All articles by Serena Dandini.