«SI was born on a rainy day.” Thus begins the new and poetic novel by Laura Imai Messina44 years old, beloved author for her ability to intertwine Italy and Japan – where he has lived for over twenty years – blending reality and legend, everyday life and enchantment. With delicate and visual writing, in The words of the rain returns to tell a story born from a powerful image: that of the umbrella woman, a silent and mysterious figure who accompanies, listens, then disappears. Between rains that speak, umbrellas that preserve memories and small gestures of love made of listening and silence.
The protagonists are Aya, the kind and strong “umbrella woman”.an employee of an agency that rents these mysterious professionals, and Toru, a defeated boxer. The subtle magic that unites two people under the same circle of shadow binds them. Because, as the author writes, sometimes you just need to share an umbrella to learn to walk together.
The novel was born from a typical urban legend of Tokyo: the “umbrella woman” who accompanies solitary travelers and then disappears.
It’s an image that has always fascinated me. It was the first story I wrote as an “aspiring writer”. His figure, with that minimal and silent gesture, has something magical. After twenty years, I was inspired again.
Laura Imai Messina was born in Rome, but lives in Tokyo. He brought his privileged gaze to the Rising Sun in highly successful novels, such as Wa, the Japanese way to harmony, What we entrust to the wind, All lost addresses. (Courtesy Press Office)
He doesn’t save, he doesn’t console, but he walks alongside…
In a certain sense, it says very symbolically: being under the same umbrella implies care, attention to each other’s steps. It is a small laboratory of humanity, listening and silence.
Do they really exist in Japan?
Not yet. But they could. In Japan there are already figures who “rent” themselves to offer company. The umbrella, then, has always been a symbol of union: in the hearts drawn at school, the names of the lovers are under an umbrella, not inside a heart.
The rain in the book is more than a background: it is an emotional language.
The rain was the spark: the first phrase that came to mind was: “I was born on a rainy day”. I engraved it in my mind and it became the incipit. Then I discovered a Japanese dictionary with dozens of different words for each type of rain. Each concept allows you to express emotions, moods, nuances of the human soul. My son was born on a rainy day.
Who is Aya? Is he a symbolic or real character?
Aya is young, younger than me, and partly me too. But more than an alter ego, it is a possibility: that of being strong in fragility, of thinking a lot before acting, of choosing kindness. In my novels there are often women like this: silent, but profound. True strength, for me, is care, not aggression. It’s the choice not to respond rudely, not to hurt even when you could. And this is difficult, it is the real challenge.
The words of the rain by Laura Imai Messina, Einaudi144. pages, €16
Aya treats umbrellas like living creatures, gives them names. Is this a way to talk about memory and loss?
Yes, the umbrella becomes a ritual object, a space where stories meet. Time inside an umbrella is different: suspended. It’s like being in a photo booth or a phone booth: everything is moving outside, but you are there, in a small world apart. And in that space something unique happens, which often remains in the memory precisely because it is fleeting.
Is the relationship between Aya and Toru a parable about trust? «In the world even those who lose are needed», he writes.
It is a story of the meeting between two people who learn to fall, and then get back up. He is tough, he doesn’t know how to give in. She, however, learned. Both gain something from the other, in terms of awareness. And in the end, in a gesture that clarified everything for me, he is the one holding the umbrella for her. Only in this way can the relationship be truly mutual.
Suggestions of Japanese folklore return in his novels.
I have lived in Japan for over twenty years, it is now my daily life. Walking down the street, I read plaques that tell legends. I am immersed in a reality that overflows with symbols, stories, images. And since I find all this beautiful, I value it. I don’t know if I would have written like this if I had stayed in Italy, but I think I would have still been enchanted by something. Humanity fascinates me, in all its forms.
Impermanence, slowness: these are other profoundly Japanese elements of his books.
Yes, I believe that Japan has strengthened the sensitivity that I already had. The sense of impermanence, for example, merged with my all-Italian melancholy. It is an awareness that things arise, change and disappear. This slow gaze, which captures the moment and honors it, has become central to my writing.
«What binds you to the world, Mio?» is another phrase from the novel. In his works, the boundary between life and death, presence and absence, is always very thin.
The border between things fascinates me, I am disturbed by the idea that there was a last time for everything, the last time I held my son in my arms, the last time I lived in Italy. The things that connect us to the world change with us. There is no fixed formula, but the ability to change your gaze over time.
Do you have a ritual when you write?
Music helps me, and I often listen to the sound of rain in headphones. It’s like getting an emotional run-up.