Can a child divorce his family forever, say “enough” and never see his parents again? That is what the narrator of the novel “The Anniversary” by Andrea Bajani, winner of the last Strega award in Italy, resolves.
“I think there is something deeply Catholic and Italian, which deserves to be analyzed in depth, (…) in reducing every social act and every identity drive to the family,” says the son of the story, after narrating season by season, the via crucis of violence and manipulation that his father applied to his mother and himself throughout his life.
The book was a success in Italy, not only for winning the Strega (one of the most important literary awards in Europe) but also because, according to the author, it touches a sensitive nerve in Italian and, why not, Catholic society: the belief that the family is a sacred and indestructible bond.
Journalist, playwright, and fiction narrator, Bajani is one of the most important writers in contemporary Italy. He lives in the United States where he teaches classes at Rice University, in Texas. In Spanish you can read his novels “Cordial Greetings”, “Map of an Absence” and “The Book of Houses”. “The Anniversary” has just been published by Anagrama and Bajani was at the Book Fair presenting it together with Leila Guerriero, invited by his publisher and the Italian Institute of Culture.
Half in Italian and half in Spanish, this dialogue took place a few hours before that presentation. These were the main topics of conversation.
News: What does it mean for an Italian writer to win the Strega prize?
Andrea Bajani: It changes your life. There are few similar awards in the countries I know. Maybe the Goncourt in France. It has nothing to do with the awards in the United States that are for a niche, for the university campus. Even the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. If I ask people on the street who won the Pulitzer Prize, no one knows. In Italy, culture, although we complain that it does not have space (the complaint is the national sport of Italy, before football) is very popular. Newspapers have at least two or three culture pages every day. This means that we, the writers, are on television at lunchtime on Sundays (that’s the third national sport: on Sundays no one leaves the table and no one turns off the TV). And the Strega Prize is the literary equivalent of the Sanremo Festival. First 12 finalists are chosen and then 5. And a tour begins with everyone in a van, city by city, for two months. It’s a kind of circus.
News: Does the popularity of the award in any way determine the literary values of the chosen books?
Bajani: A strange balance is achieved. The award establishes who is the best literary writer and at the same time, the one who has the potential to reach many readers.. And victory is a kind of explosion. No writer is used to that repercussion. The day after winning the contest, you get on the train and there are 10 people reading your book. The same if you go to the beach. But they are people who read only one book a year. And it is an award that comes at a time in the authors’ careers, when they are in a position to touch a sensitive chord with their books, to speak within the climate of the time. And they are texts that are debated. On the other hand, all people start reading a type of book that makes them uncomfortable. In the case of “The Anniversary”, a book that brings to light the ghosts of a patriarchal society.
News: Why do you think your book is so successful?
Bajani: The issue is that it touches on the taboo of Italy. What is that phrase that so many people would like to say about family, but no one has the courage to say, the forbidden phrase? “Enough about my family.” You can’t say it because God comes and destroys you. You are going to hell. One year after the book’s release in Italy, I can affirm that “The Anniversary” is a story that says the forbidden phrase. And everyone can say it through a book. Even before the Strega award, the book reached second place on the best sellers list 5 days after coming out. Reading provoked a feeling of liberation.
News: Liberation in the sense of conveying the idea that everyone can leave their family behind?
Bajani: Yes. Or at least think about it. In a presentation, someone told me that when he finished reading the book, he called the brothers and said: “Let’s do it too.” There has been a kind of contagion. That’s why I said that reading produced a feeling of liberation in some. Others perceived it as a dangerous book, which was scary to read. And there was also a conservative reaction, which is also part of the success. Because taboo works like that.
News: Some criticize the narrator’s distant and cold view of the mother’s situation in the family.
Bajani: The gazes on her are polarized. I tried to work throughout the versions I made, with a tone that was as calm as possible, that did not establish a judgment about the character. Culturally, the mother had not been given a chance, because within Italy there is an idea of family in which the woman was assigned an invisible place. On the other hand, she turns her face away during episodes of violence against her son. Therefore, theoretically, as a mother it is little. And the idea that the son should protect the mother and not that the mother should protect the son is also strange, in some readings. I always try to create complex characters who can remain far from the final judgment. The mother in the novel is mysterious. Furthermore, it is very difficult to understand the alliance that unites two people, in this case, the mother and the father.
News: You must have been asked a thousand times if it is an autobiographical story.
Bajani: Autobiography is a genre that I read but am not interested in writing. Rather, it is a national autobiography, it reflects a deep taboo that all Italian families, in one way or another, have experienced.. The idea that interests me is that the reader, against his will, feels totally involved, feels that he is being talked about. This book was successful because of this. After each presentation, people would come up to me and say, “How could you write about my life?” And the feminists expressed to me: “The reason why this novel is destabilizing is that no woman in Italy can deny that within that character there is something that they have at least once felt.”
News: Another theme of the novel is the difficulty of women studying and being supported in that desire.
Bajani: We usually think that this difficulty does not exist. But it’s because we have a metropolitan and bourgeois vision of culture. It is the vision of the newspapers: the poor only exist in statistics, they are used to provide figures – the poverty line, the number of homes – but the press office of a nation is the bourgeoisie. If we go to the provinces, which make up most of a country, this version of women is still present. Mothers and fathers of women who want to go to university tell them: “Why do you have to go? You have to have children and take care of them.” It is a very present culture and this is what is uncomfortable. Also very present in men. It is the patriarchy that continues to be dominant. This is the reason why my book has been successful.
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