Stefania Auci, the bestselling author of the Florio saga, has continued working as a support teacher even after the record success of "The Lions of Sicily" and "The Winter of the Lions," which have sold over 1.5 million copies. "We must give young people the tools to think for themselves," she said at Pordenonelegge, where she presented the latest installment of the Florio saga, "L'alba dei Leoni" (Nord), which returns to the origins of the family before their rise to prominence, as well as a book for young readers — though for everyone — titled "Cunti, storie, romanzi" (Mondadori), in which she discusses the books that have shaped her life.
"Many people are surprised that I haven't left teaching. Living in the publishing bubble is wonderful, but it is a bubble. Staying in school means realizing that real life exists. I try to give priority to what is the reality of my life, and I realize I've said things that might leave people a little surprised."
"Up until the Eighties and Nineties, almost no parent would have ever dared to go to a teacher and say: 'Look, this isn't right.' But this isn't praise for the past — it's the fact that back then, the boundaries and the educational mandate were clearly defined. Parents acted as parents, teachers acted as teachers. Then there is also the major, thorny problem of teachers' social standing within our society. Teachers are seen as people who are supposed to manage children, and unfortunately teachers themselves are the first to have a poor self-image — why? Because they are objectively paid very little. We are among the lowest-paid professional categories in all of Europe," Auci emphasized in response to journalists' questions.
"What has been missing," she explained, "is the connection between school and family — a non-competitive dialogue between school and family."
Auci's development as a reader is inextricably intertwined with family bonds, as she recounts in "Cunti, storie, romanzi." "I was a child who didn't want to eat, and so my grandmother would tell me stories to persuade me. With this book I reread my childhood, when I was three to five years old," said the writer, who has always placed great importance on oral tradition and dialect.
"I use dialect a great deal, and consciously so. I do it because in certain contexts, dialect is what allows us to express our most affectionate and emotional side."
What interests the author of the Lions saga is "telling stories, and this book tells my story. My life unfolds through the experience of reading. At every stage — good or bad — I can say that books have helped me. When my father died and I was thirty, I felt like an abandoned child, and Harry Potter was a consolation. For the more recent loss of my mother, Carrère's 'Limonov' and Simenon's 'Letter to My Mother' were a source of comfort. Books have been there at important moments, and I can tell you exactly which ones I was reading at any given time. For that I feel deep gratitude."
Certain classics also reflect who we are today, as in the encounter between Hector, Andromache, and Astyanax in the Iliad. The gesture of the father removing his helmet so as not to frighten his son, and then taking him in his arms, expresses "an emotion we still recognise today. That book still speaks to us because it is part of what it means to be human."
What books are read most frequently at school? "Not the ones we expect. Boys and girls read romance novels and don't like to talk about it because they are ashamed of adults' judgment."
The third and new chapter of the Florio saga takes us to Bagnara Calabra between 1772 and 1779, before the move to Palermo, when the family is far from the wealth and prestige it would later achieve in Palermo." The atmosphere is "wilder," says the author, and the earthquake of 1783 will mark a watershed moment.
Is the saga truly concluded or could it continue with the development of some characters, perhaps? "For now it is truly concluded, but I have learned," she states, "that you can never say anything definitively."
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