TO how many happened to wake up at night with their heart in their throat after dreaming of repeating the final exam? To many. Well, the Utet wanted to ask 13 authors to try again, trying their hand either with the same trace of the theme of the time, or with another from the same year. A game, but also much more. An anthology was born, What track did you choose. A class of authors once again grappling with the theme of maturity, which comes out a few days before the start of the 2023 high school diploma.
In the anthology writers and writers, in chronological order, accompany us lightly but also with emotion and a pinch of nostalgia, on a journey through the history of the exam that marks a watershed in everyone’s life.
Maturity 2023 is upon us: the first test is Wednesday 21. Getty Images
«The idea came to me years ago, when I was working at Linus», says the curator, Ivan Carozzi. “For a June issue I collected tracks from the 1950s through 2015, and they’ve been on my computer ever since. So I invited writers to reread those of their year and to rewrite the subject of maturity, either taking up the same track, or choosing another one. It was a game, but also the starting point for a series of personal reflections on the current events of yesterday and today, on the value of school, and also on time.
«Some then chose to go “off topic”, such as Bianca Pitzorno, graduated in 1961, who absolutely does not remember which track he chose, while on the contrary he precisely remembers that of the eighth grade theme and many episodes, which he shared with us here, of his years in high school».
Bianca Pitzorno’s story is a beautiful memory of the years in her high school in Sassari and when she participated in a competition on the unification of Europe, where she wrote a text that earned her a prize. But we also talk about teachers, parents, and the importance of friendship. Completely different but equally enjoyable was the scenario of Barbara Alberti’s adolescence, who graduated a year later, in 1962. But she lived in Rome, and 1968 was already in the air. She rebel since childhood, and rejected for conduct, arrived at the high school exam she made an unexpected decision, and all to be read.
The cover of the anthology published by Utet in view of the 2023 Maturity.
There are also those who have never graduated
Among the 13 authors of the anthology, there are two who have never taken the final exam. The first is the writer Antonio Morescowho defines himself as still immature and recalls “the desperate years of his youth” and the multiple failures he suffered. The other is Chicoria, rapper, exponent of the Roman underground, forced to enroll by his mother at the Virgilio high school which he then left. “He was later arrested and spent a year in Rebibbia,” says Carozzi. “When he left, he started meeting school students to talk about the reality of prison.” Among other testimonies, there is the comic strip by Roberta Scomparsa and the nursery rhyme by Diego Marcon.
Surreal – and very funny – the dialogue between Carozzi and ChatGPT. «I submitted the 2022 trace on the pandemic to him, but he didn’t understand it. From there a very curious conversation began with ChatGPT who used the “we” to talk about the Covid experience, as if he were a human being ».
Even Carozzi, like Bianca Pitzorno, does not remember the track carried out at maturity, even if he feels he belongs “to that category of people who dream of having to retake the exam”.
And you, do you remember what you wrote in the essay? And would you be able to pass the test again?
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