An autumn in August by Agnese Pini: the review by Aldo Cazzullo

NoIt is not true that in Italy no woman has ever directed a major newspaper since the days of Matilde Serao. Agnese Pini directs three of them: The Nation, The Pug and the Daywhich together are called Qn, national newspaper.

He has now published a book: An autumn in August. It is the story, with a strongly narrative and personal cut, of one of the tragic forgotten massacres of Nazi fascism, that of San Terenzo Monti in August 1944.

The book combines personal history and everyone’s history: Pini’s great-grandmother died in the massacre, and Agnese grew up with her grandmother’s stories who – since there has never been an “Italian Nuremberg”, but rather a great amnesty – like many others in his condition he has always given the responsibility for the massacre to the partisans who killed the 16 German soldiersgiving the right to the Nazis for the terrible retaliatory action (159 dead: the only survivor, a girl, Clara, who pretended to be dead under the corpses of her entire family).

The book leads to an important reflection on the accounts never made with our past and on wounds never healed and still open today (in San Terenzo Monti, in the September 2022 elections, Giorgia Meloni’s party obtained 50 percent of the votes).

To tell it in the words of Agnese Pini herself: «A story like this leaves an indelible mark on the families who suffered it, and belongs to all survivors and the children of survivors. It is a story of humanity and love, because especially in moments when life and death are so close, humanity and love come out stronger than ever. I have heard it told since I was little: my grandmother, my mother, my aunt (depicted in the cover photo of the book) told it, but for a long time I thought it was a closed chapter in the history of Italy and of my personal history. I was wrong».

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