Mara. Una donna del novecento

Mara was born in 1920 and was 13 years old when this story begins. She lives near largo di Torre Argentina. Her father is a shopkeeper, her mother a housewife. She has a best friend, Nadia, a staunch fascist, who takes her to hear the Duce in Piazza Venezia. She likes to read and would like to be a writer or journalist when she grows up. So many dreams and hopes run through her: to study Latin literature, to become beautiful and independent like her elegant Aunt Luisa, with her little hats and firm, quick step. The future seems within her grasp, safe beneath the portrait of Duce that stands in her living room between the two armchairs. This is what Mara thinks, and like her many other Italians who flock under His balcony in Piazza Venezia. Until doubt begins to work, to draw small cracks, to open wounds. Between the public and the private, History composes tragedies that rewrite individual and collective destinies, without exception. What remains is to obey one’s desires: in storms they keep afloat, and in blue skies they know how to draw the roads of tomorrow.