(from our correspondent Mauretta Capuano)
Stefania Auci, the bestselling author
of the Florio saga, continued working as a support teacher even after the record success of 'I leoni di Sicilia' and
'L'inverno dei leoni', 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 final chapter of the Florio saga, 'L'alba dei Leoni'
(Nord), which returns to the origins, before the family's rise to prominence, and the book for young readers—but for everyone—'Cunti, storie, romanzi'
(Mondadori), in which she talks about the books of her life.
"Many people are surprised that I haven't left
school. Living in the publishing bubble is wonderful, but it is a
bubble. Staying in school means realising that there is
a life out there. I try to give priority to what is the reality
of my life, and I realise I have said things that might
leave people a little surprised."
"Up until the Eighties and Nineties, hardly any parent would ever have dared to go and tell a teacher: 'Look, this isn't right.' But this is not a praise of the past—it is the
fact that at the time the boundary and the educational mandate were clearly defined. Parents did the job of parents, teachers did the job of teachers. Then there is also the major, thorny problem of the social perception of teachers within our
society. Teachers are seen as people who are supposed to manage children, and unfortunately they themselves are the first to have a poor self-image—why? Because objectively they are paid very little. We are among the lowest-paid
professional categories in all of Europe," Auci stressed in response to journalists' questions.
"What has been missing," she explained, "is the bond between school and
family, a non-competitive dialogue between school and family."
Auci's formation as a reader is inextricably intertwined
with family affections, 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 coax me into it. With this book I reread my childhood, when I was 3 to 5 years old," said the writer, who has always placed great importance on orality 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 the more affectionate and emotional side of things."
What interests the author of the Lions saga is "telling stories, and this book tells my story. My life passes
through the experience of reading. At every stage,
good or bad, I can say that books have helped me. When my father died when I was 30, I felt like an abandoned child, and
Harry Potter was a comfort. For the death of my mother, which is more recent, Emmanuel Carrère's Kotlovan and Simenon's Lettres à ma mère were a help. Books have been there at important moments, and I can say exactly which ones I was reading at any given time. For this I feel deep gratitude."
Even certain classics 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 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 often in school? "Not the ones we would expect. Boys and girls read romance and not—"
they talk about it willingly 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 will 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 character, perhaps? "Now it is truly concluded, but I have learned," she states, "that you can never say anything definitively."
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