"Tabaccherie Orientali" di Clara Nubile

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 2010
Genere: racconti
Paese: Italia

"Tabaccherie Orientali", di Clara Nubile, LAB, collana "Gli Ulivi", € 11

E' bastato un commento al blog di Silvia a scatenare un'emozionante momento serendipico, che coinvolgeva la poetessa indiano-americana Meena Alexander, la giovane scrittrice pachistana Kamila Shamsie e il poeta kashmiro-americano Agha Shahid Ali, quest'ultimo a formare da cuscino naturale, per una volta smilitarizzato, tra le due. E' così che sono arrivata a conoscere questo libro emozionante, i cui momenti lirici non rovinano il tessuto del racconto.

"Ai miei studenti d'America dicevo sempre, prendete le vostre parole, quelle parole che avevo scritto con caparbia e presunzione, con impeto e pietà. Prendete le vostre parole e mettetele spalle al muro, poi spogliatele. E sparate, senza pensarci nemmeno un attimo. Gonfiatele di proiettili, dilaniatele, riempitele di piombo. Infine raccogliete i resti, i cadaveri ancora palpitanti delle vostre parole e avvolgetele in un sudario. Di notte, cullatele. Vegliate sulle vostre parole sbrindellate. Fate la veglia funebre alle vostre parole, ai vostri romanzi, alle poesie, ai racconti, ai passaggi, alle lettere. E al terzo giorno resusciteranno, senza le vostre mani. Da sole le parole si alzeranno dal sepolcro di carta e si incammineranno per strada, investite di luce vergine, libere da rimorsi e somiglianze. Forse a quel punto potrete anche pensare di avere scritto due versi, due righe degne di essere lette." (p.42)

Agha Shahid Ali

A parlare così è Agha Shahid Ali, poeta kashmiro-americano purtroppo non ancora tradotto in Italia (se non per sporadiche poesie in qualche antologia), che è anche uno dei personaggi di questa raccolta di racconti, sospesi tra l'India, il Salento e una manciata di altri luoghi del globo. In ogni storia a parlare è un personaggio realmente vissuto: poeti, attivisti e viaggiatori, ma anche boss della mala, narcotrafficanti e banditesse indiane. Non unicamente modelli da imitare, o persone da riverire, quindi, ma anche criminali o gente dalla vita travagliata, la cui umanità palese è rappresentata dalle pantofole di Topolino che indossava Pablo Escobar, il più potente narcotrafficante che la Colombia abbia mai conosciuto, al suo funerale. Il mio racconto preferito, tra i dieci proposti, è forse proprio quello dedicato al poeta che viene da un paese in cui non ci sono più gli uffici postali, che poi sarebbe appunto quella vallata dove "creano desolazione e la chiamano pace", il Kashmir.    

Quando deve imbucare una lettera, lui che come tanti altri scrittori vive in esilio, deve per forza decidere se comprare un francobollo per l'India o per il Pakistan. Ma come può decidere? Un francobollo per il Kashmir non esiste, com'è tristemente noto. Il bello di questo racconto è la rielaborazione dei versi del poeta, che funzionano per accumulazione ed associazione, mentre i racconti normalmente scorrono perché c'è un filo narrativo e la stessa noiosa logica che riempie le nostre giornate. Ma la poesia contemporanea - e quella di Agha Shahid Ali in modo particolare - è come un sogno, così capita di arrivare in ritardo di dieci anni ad uno spettacolo al cinema, oppure di passeggiare per le strade della vecchia Delhi completamente deserte. Ricordi ed immagini forgiate dall'esilio, dalla nostalgia, dalle migrazioni.

La banditessa Phoolan Devi

Ma non è lui l'unico personaggio dall'esistenza tormentata: c'è la dacoit e parlamentare indiana Phoolan Devi, che parla nello stesso linguaggio sboccato del film biografico "Bandit Queen", e la cantante di ghazal Begum Akhtar, che saliva sul palco con una fiaschetta di whisky e con la sigaretta perennemente in bocca. Ci sono anche personaggi nati in Occidente che però, come l'autrice, avevano il prurito sotto i piedi e hanno girato il mondo: Bruce Chatwin, l'indimenticabile autore de "Le Vie dei Canti", o Mildred Cable, missionaria inglese che si è spinta fino in Cina. Quest'ultima accompagna l'io narrante del racconto "La notte che scoprii di essere Mildred Cable". Ogni tanto infatti spunta questo personaggio, presumibilmente autobiografico: una ragazza che sta viaggiando per l'India e si trova allo stesso tempo spaesata ed estasiata dal nuovo paese che sta imparando a conoscere e ad amare. Nel primo di questi racconti, "Persino il cielo è diventato verde", vengono evocati i canali del Kerala, a quanto mi dicono non dissimili da quelli veneziani che conosco bene, e le verdissime risaie, anch'esse paragonabili a quelle della pianura padana, poi di nuovo le montagne del Kashmir, regione che Hans vuole visitare a tutti i costi nonostante il conflitto, inseguendo una leggenda che sarà per lui una maledizione. Incapsulato di nuovo da un verso di Agha Shahid Ali ("separation can't be borne / when the rains come"), questo racconto è infatti dedicato a Hans Christian Ostro, viaggiatore e danzatore norvegese che è stato ucciso in Kashmir. La morte e la malattia è un po' un fantasma in questi racconti che sprizzano voglia di vivere ma dove la morte è appunto o inaspettata oppure giunge in modi raccapriccianti, come nel caso del virus misterioso che ha stroncato la vita straordinaria, sempre sulla cresta dell'avventura, dello scrittore di viaggio inglese Bruce Chatwin. Infarciti di versi di poesie e di citazioni, che alle volte travalicano le dimensioni del tempo e dello spazio, come quando Begum Akhtar cita una canzone di Vinicio Capossela, questa raccolta di racconti che non supera le ottanta pagine è una bella ventata di aria fresca nel mercato stantio della letteratura italiana.

Sull'autrice: Clara Nubile è nata a Brindisi, nel 1974. Nel 2001 è partita per Bombay, dove ha fatto la ricercatrice, ma ha vissuto anche ad Antwerp, in Belgio, e a Ravenna. E' traduttrice e scrittrice. Ha pubblicato "Io ti Attacco nel Sangue" (Fazi, 2005) e "Lupo" (Fazi, 2007). La trovate anche nel blog di Tabaccherie Orientali.

"Possession" by A.S. Byatt

Year of first publication: 1990

Genre: novel, historical novel, detective novel

Country: UK

There are some books whose success is perfectly understandable: a compelling but altogether simple plot, a love story perhaps and likeable characters. The success of A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”, nonetheless, is unusual: set in the world of academia, with two scholars of 19^th-century English poetry as its main protagonists, “Possession” is packed with academic discussions, several-pages-long Victorian poems, not to mention 19^th-century letters and journal, so that the present-time narrative space is sensibly restricted. How could the general public, with no interest in literary history, enjoy this? The love story disentangles only at the end of the book and some of the characters are not exactly likable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, of course, as I dabble in literature myself. “Possession” shows how the scholarship of two famous Victorian poets can considerably change with the discovery of a bundle of love letters. Roland Michell, a diligent if not dull researcher in one of the most revered Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash, finds in an old book an unfinished letter to an unknown woman. After researching in journals and asking several other academics, he discovers that Ash held a correspondence with Christabel LaMotte, a poet worshipped by feminists for her lesbian relationship with a painter, Blance Glover. The scholar starts a compelling quest for more information on this secret love story, in the course of which he meets Professor Maud Bailey, one the main experts on LaMotte’s poetry. The two academics visit her grave and find out they have an affinity that goes beyond their love for literature or Victorian poetry. Yet, they are determined not to fall in love. The author has recently reported that her American editor insisted on saying that it was impossible for two people not to have intercourse for such a long time, seen that they were so clearly attracted one to the other. I found it intriguing and realistic, instead. Roland and Maud’s insecure love story reflects Ash and LaMotte’s relationship and the genius in Byatt’s book is that at a certain point they realize it. They are academics, after all, and their work very often consists in finding connections.  

Christina Rossetti

Balancing many genres – the historical novel, the detective story and the novel of manners – A.S. Byatt’s book is reminiscent of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”, but it is also a reflection on scholarship, poetry and literary history. The book shows, among other things, how the role of women in academia has changed through centuries. Christabel LaMotte, for instance, is a fictitious nineteenth-century poet who was considered inferior to male authors just because of her sex and is still revered as a great poet only by feminists, like Maud. Her friend and companion Blanche committed suicide in a way reminiscent of Mary Wollstonecraft’s attempt: throwing herself from Putney Bridge, that is. Another great character is Beatrice Nest, a contemporary scholar whose passion for Randolph Henry Ash only resulted in a 25-year-long study of his wife’s dull journals, because it was the only subject she was “allowed” to study at a time, the 1960s, when academia was a world dominated only by men. Women’s studies came after that, but the two worlds remained separated. Maud Bailey, an expert on LaMotte’s poetry, dismisses Ash, one of the most renowned poets of his time, for the male imaginary of his poetry and so does Roland Michell with regards to Christabel LaMotte who wrote about fairies and monsters. It is only by coincidence that they start to talk with each other, finding connections and similarities between their way of thinking.

"Proserpine" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The spirit of women like Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft or Judith Shakespeare permeates the novel. They are all women who had brothers or husbands whose work is among the greatest achievements in the literary world, but who could have because authors just as well, or who struggled to become authors but never had the success of their male counterparts. There are in fact many allusions to the great literature that has been written under Queen Victoria’s reign. Personally, I indulged on a kind of game while I was reading the book: is there a model A.S. Byatt followed to create the two poets? I don’t have an answer but Christabel LaMotte I imagine like a pencil sketch of Christina Rossetti or like the women in her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings. As for Ash I don’t have a model in mind, but I think Tennyson and Browning are the poets everyone would think about (incidentally, Tennyson wrote a poem called ‘Maud’ and ‘Christabel’ is  a long poem by Coleridge). 
Possession is naturally - leaving aside the sexual meaning, which also has its importance - what drives Roland and Maud in their quest: they want to possess the authors they study, not their letters and relics, but also their thoughts, their lives, their words. But is it really possible? I’ll add something unpopular to finish: I didn’t particularly like the poems. I found myself skipping them all the time, as the clues were discernible anyway in Roland and Maud’s disquisitions. That's the problem of such a gripping story! Yet, the poems are what makes this novel peculiar: they are an integral part of the work and not a later addition. They are not memorable, in my opinion, but they help building a 19th-century athmosphere around the two characters.



About the author: A.S. Byatt is considered one of the most important living authors in Britain. She was born in  Sheffield, England, in 1936. Her mother was a scholar of Browning and her sister is also a novelist. She wrote, among other things, a quartet of novels inspired by D.H. Lawrence, which inclues "The Virgin in the Garden" (1978) and "Still Life "1985). She is also the author of several collections of short stories, for instance "The Matisse Stories", where each story is inspired by a painting by Matisse. "Possession", her most famous novel, won the Booker Prize and was made into a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow. Her last novel is "The Children's Book" (2009). 

Che cosa resterà di questi Incroci di Civiltà 2011?

Di solito, quando vado ad un festival letterario, faccio tanti post, uno per ogni incontro, sforzandomi di ricordare che cosa abbia detto ognuno degli autori, sciorinando nomi di romanzi e scrivendo brevi biografie frettolose. Questa volta voglio fare brevi snapshot degli incontri a cui ho partecipato:

- Kiran Nagarkar: Convinto che siamo venuti tutti ad ascoltarlo a pagamento, l'umiltà di questo scrittore è pari solo alla qualità letteraria che traspare dalle letture dei suoi libri. Mi è rimasta la voglia di comprarmi "Cuckold" sul marito di Mirabai, la grande poetessa mistica indiana. Invece non è stato tradotto in italiano e non ce l'hanno al banchetto, quindi mi devo accontentare di "Ravan & Eddie", pubblicato da Metropoli d'Asia.

- Pap Khouma ed Igiaba Scego: Lui gesticola molto quando parla, spalancando le braccia enormi: non ho difficoltà a credere che sua madre, quando è tornato in Senegal dopo molti anni passati in Italia, gli abbia detto: "Ma come sei cambiato, sei diventato così italiano!". Lei, orecchini giganti che tintinnano, è la vincitrice del Premio Bauer, insieme a V.S. Naipaul! Legge un passo tratto dal suo ultimo libro, "La mia casa è dove sono", sui migranti che arrivano sui barconi: molto attuale, colpisce nel segno. Quando apro il libro di Khouma  ad una pagina a caso, incontro un cinema Rialto, immerso nelle strade di Dakar anziché nelle calli veneziane dove ci troviamo. Che magia!

- Jabbour Douaihy e Gad Lerner: "C'è Gad!", dico ad Igiaba Scego, emozionata e sconvolta perché il giornalista che vedo il lunedì sera in televisione è seduto a tre metri da noi, nel cortile del Casinò di Venezia, con i mitici pantaloni giallo senape e quella erre moscia strana. Douaihy non lo vedo, nella stanza stretta e lunga dove ci hanno messo, ma ascolto mentre legge dal suo romanzo il suo arabo dall'influenza francese, cresciuto all'ombra dei cedri del Libano.

- A.S. Byatt: E' abbastanza vero quello che dicono di lei: austera e poco incline alle battute, anche quando dice delle cose divertenti non si scompone. Forse la più grande scrittrice inglese contemporanea, Byatt ci racconta che è affascinata dalla scienza e che una volta ha incontrato un entomologo che voleva chiamare una sua farfalla con il suo nome. Come è successo a Nabokov, anche lui appassionato di farfalle, che ne ha una che porta il suo nome. Questa connessione da sola vale la serata.

- Wladimir Kaminer: tedesco di origine russa, scrittore e DJ, Kaminer nei suoi libri prende in giro i tedeschi. Scrive per esempio di un cane che aveva preso in bocca la mano del suo amico Boris. Non l'aveva morsa ma la teneva proprio in bocca. Lui, del tutto spontaneamente, ha urlato al cane "Heil Hitler!" e il cane ha lasciato la presa. Evidentemente era un cane nazista, è stato il commento. Umorismo Russendisko... 

- Nathan Englander e Alessandro Piperno: Diversissimi come scrittura, uno dalla prosa più  tradizionale, "quasi proustiana" (Piperno), e l'altro dirompente, con un accento newyorkese talmente forte da stordire (Englander). "A New York, appena uscivo dalla mia bolla mi sentivo ebreo. Sono dovuto andare in Israele per non sentirmi più ebreo" dice Englander. Paradossalmente illuminante.

- V.S. Naipaul: il peperino Naipaul questa volta era proprio laconico e ha parlato poco. Accompagnato come sempre dalla moglie Nadira che sale sul palco, elegante nel suo salwar kameez verde, per dare qualche indicazione al marito, Sir Vidia legge dal suo ultimo libro, "La Maschera dell'Africa", un pezzo sulla tomba dimenticata di un grande re africano. L'Africa, per Naipaul, è un luogo degli orrori, dove sanguinari dittatori si succedono uno dopo l'altro. Un libro per curarsi dal terzomondismo più accanito?    

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

Year of first publication: 1847
Genre: novel, Gothic novel, romantic novel
Country: UK

At a certain point in "Wuthering Heights", when Heathcliff learns of Isabella's infatuation for him, Emily Brontë writes: 'And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.’ (p.115). I think this is how we look at the characters of this novel, morbidly, like we look at an eerie animal. Emily Brontë is often called the sphinx of English literature, because how the daughter of a clergyman who lived a secluded life in rural Yorkshire came to write this tale of human wickedness and revenge is one of the main concerns of critics of 19th-century Gothic and romantic literature.

This book was among my favourite during my teenage years, but I had not reread it since. What I saw at the time, of course, was the dark, strong, inexplicable love story between Heathcliff and Catherine. I could not care for the second generation: Cathy seemed to me a dull version of her mother and I was fascinated only by the (in)possibility of ghosts wandering the windy moors of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. I did not see all the implications and possible readings that the novel could have: an exposure of the unfair laws that regulated inheritance, the puzzle of Heathcliff's ethnic origins or the "nature versus culture" topos.

"Wuthering Heights" is the story of Heathcliff and his revenge, above all. The story is told by Ellen Dean, the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, to a certain Mr Lockwood, the new tenant there. After an iconic scene where Mr Lockwood dreams of the ghost of a woman knocking at his window, but then wakes up and finds out that it was just the branch of a tree pulling against the window, Ellen Dean starts to tell the story of the two families who inhabited Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She recalls that Heathcliff was first brought home as a child by Mr Earnshaw after a trip to Liverpool, but his origins were unknown. He lookes like a gypsy, with dark, unruly hair and black eyes and she likes to speculate, even suggesting that he might have Chinese or Indian origins (pp.64-65). He is treated like a son by Mr Earnshaw, but he is not considered as such by everyone else (here's again another topos, see Austen's "Mansfield Park" for instance). His only friend in the world is Catherine Earnshaw: together, they run and have adventures in the open air, like brother and sister. One day, they run away from Wuthering Heights, like children do when they play. They reach Thrushcross Grange, which appears like a nice cottage owned by the Lintons. Here Heathcliff is discarded as a gypsy, while Catherine is treated like a princess. In the following weeks at Thrushcross Grange, she is taught good manners and is given nice clothes. The interactions between the Earnshaws and the Lintons result in two marriages. Catherine marries Edgar Linton, despite she loves Heathcliff. 'I am Heathcliff' (p.90) she says, in one of the most famous monologues of English literature. The reasons why she loves him remain obscure, even after 150 years of the book's first publication. Is it the kind of love that twins have or is it a more carnal passion? What we know is what the text says: Heatchliff leaves after hearing who Catherine is going to marry and in the next few years nothing is known about his whereabouts. When he comes back, he is a gentleman, rich and good-mannered. He gambles with Hindley, Catherine's brother, in order to inherit Wuthering Heights, and teaches Hindley's son Hareton bad manners. Heathcliff – an outcast, dark-skinned and lacking lineage – manages to become the master of the house and to destroy the two families. Catherine dies in childbirth, but not after having hold Heathcliff in her arms for the last time, and Heatchliff elopes with Isabella, Edgar's sister (oh, God, this novel is getting so difficult to summarize!). The story goes on with the second generation: Catherine and Edgar's daughter Cathy, Heathcliff and Isabella's sickly son Linton and Hindley's son Hareton, whom Heathcliff has not taught how to read and whom he treates as a peasant. Hindley being dead, maybe murdered by Heathcliff, and Hareton not representing a menace, Heathcliff has almost accomplished his revenge. His next evil plan is to make sure that Cathy Linton falls in love with poor Linton, his son, so he will inherit Thrushcross Grange as well. He manages to do that, at his son's expenses. Linton, already ill, in fact dies soon after marrying Cathy. The epilogue takes place when Mr Lockwood goes back to the region after a few months of absence and finds Ellen Dean living at Wuthering Heights with Cathy and Hareton, who have become friends, Heathcliff having died in the attempt of seeing Catherine's ghost through fasts and long wanderings in the night.

All the characters in the novel are loathsome: even Catherine, the heroine of the story, is whimsical, sometimes cruel and above all, impertinent and bossy. Her daughter Cathy is perhaps less unpleasant, but she is altogether spoiled and superficial. Linton is one of the most annoying characters in literature and Heathcliff is just too cruel and evil to be plausible. This is why I suggest that readers look at "Wuthering Heights" as if it were a strange animal. We ask ourselves what could Emily Brontë possibly mean with this novel and we wonder why we are so attracted to it. I browsed the web to learn what critics wrote and came out with a lot of different readings, but none of them satisfies. Lord David Cecil in 1935 wrote that the principle of calm and storm pervades the novel, suggesting that "Wuthering Heights" should be read in that sense. He certainly had a good point, but I don't think that "Wuthering Heights" can be restricted to a single reading. Emily Brontë certainly tackles and subverts the question of power relations, for instance, with the Other (Heathcliff) taking the role of master. Heathcliff is, nonetheless, essentially the villain of the story, albeit forced to become so by circumstances. His is an usurpation of power by the Other, the undefinied colonial subject (gypsy, Lascar or Irish, the origin doesn't really matter). Race as a metaphor for gender works only partially here: while at the end of the story Cathy is reintroduced in the inheritance line (Hareton will formally inherit, I think, but it is Cathy who's managing the house), Heathcliff or his potentially benevolent descendants are wiped out. The only son he had was a sickly, hideous boy whose horrible fate the reader is encouraged to soon forget. Those whose lineage are unknown remain therefore exluded. In other words, gender is preferred over race. The novel questions and then reaffirms imperial ideology (as Susan Meyer says of "Jane Eyre"). I think that the problem of inheritance and power structures is integral to the story, but there are so many things in this book that one does not feel at ease by endorsing a particular interpretation over the others.

In my opinion, "Wuthering Heights" is, first of all, a tale of revenge, of what rage, hatred and isolation can do to human beings. It is a story that still exerts its quirky fascination over the readers: Heatchliff digging up Catherine's body or the isolation of Yorkshire moorlands roughening the character of people stay forever in readers' minds. It is a novel of extreme violence, sometimes unmotivated and prompted by frustration, with oppositions and strange haunting images (what about the dead rabbits or the hounds at the beginning of the novel?), and this is why it is a story that lingers in the mind of readers long after having finished the book.     

About the author: Emily Brontë (1818-1848), was born in the moorlands of Yorkshire, the daughter of a clergyman. She had a stern education and never left Yorkshire. She had a close relationship with her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, who were also writers. She left only one novel ("Wuthering Heights") and some poems. She died of tubercolosis at thrirty years of age. She was unmarried and, it is said, never knew love.

Wallace Stevens, 'Mozart, 1935'

It is National Poetry Month in the USA. To celebrate this I have decided to post a poem by an American author, Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). I came across this poem late at night. It was one of the first nights of the Lybian war and I could hear the planes flying above my head, leaving from an American military base nearby. They were heavy and I knew that, in spite of all the talks of peacekeeping missions, they were taking war to that country, so close to Italy geographically. I understood the poem as an invitation to keep writing poetry, keep producing art even in a violent world. Ignoring what is happening around him, a corpse being carried down the stairs, stones thrown upon the roof, I perceived that Wallace Stevens was asking artists to keep working even in a time of great upheavals and horrors. Just read the poem and then something more after it...    

Mozart, 1935

Poet, be seated at the piano.
Play the present, its hoo-hoo-hoo,
Its shoo-shoo-shoo, its ric-a-nic,
Its envious cachinnation.
If they throw stones upon the roof
While you practice arpeggios,
It is because they carry down the stairs
A body in rags.
Be seated at the piano.
That lucid souvenir of the past,
The divertimento;
That airy dream of the future,
The unclouded concerto . . .
The snow is falling.
Strike the piercing chord.
Be thou the voice,
Not you. Be thou, be thou
The voice of angry fear,
The voice of this besieging pain.
Be thou that wintry sound
As of the great wind howling,
By which sorrow is released,
Dismissed, absolved
In a starry placating.
We may return to Mozart.
He was young, and we, we are old.
The snow is falling
And the streets are full of cries.
Be seated, thou.

The poem is actually quite connected to the moment in which it was written, as I learned browsing the internet for information. Many critics accused Wallace Stevens of paying too much attention to sounds and rhythm, without putting ideas into his poetry. He was considered 'out of tune' in a time when the Great Depression was what people should think about and consequently what poets should be writing about. The poet answers with this poem, quite beautifully. 'Be seated at the piano' he says, play arpeggios, even when people throw stones at your roof. Is it critics, criticizing the poet? Is it the terrible things happening in the world? I don't know. The poet-pianist is playing the present (hoo-hoo-hoo, shoo-shoo-shoo, ric-a-nic, whatever the tune of the moment is) and must remain seated at the piano. In the end, history passes, art remains. Mozart is still relevant today, he's still young, because with his music 'sorrow is released / dismissed, absolved'). This is what art is for. It cannot always change things in the world, but it is important in order to give our minds a relief from the bleakness of everyday life and maybe in order to placate our conflicts. That comma in the title, critics write, is essential: Mozart seems anachronistic in 1935, but is it really? By the end of the poem it doesn't seem so. 'The streets are full of cries', the last line says, and yet it is placidly snowing, Mozart is playing. Poet, be seated at the piano! The poet is 'interested not in writing about the street, but in writing about the problem of writing about the street' Mark Halliday wrote.
I so regret that Wallace Stevens was not in my syllabus, because I love this poem.

"The Skin Between Us. A Memoir of Race, Beauty and Belonging" by Kym Ragusa

Year of first publication: 2006
Genre: memoir
Country: USA

Kym Ragusa's memoir begins on the Strait of Messina, dividing Sicily from Calabria and representing the crossroad between Europe and Africa. This place is significative for the author, because her paternal ancestors migrated from Southern Italy to America and her maternal ancestors were African slaves brought to North America via a forced migration. Standing there on the ferryboat, with her corkscrew hair tied in a knot in order 'not to stand out' (p.18), she reflects on the meaning of belonging to a place. She would like to shoot the ancient Greek-Sicilian myth of Persephone, the goddess that divided her time between the underworld and the mortal world. 'What are you?', American people ask her, 'where are you from?', Italian people always enquire, curious about her skin colour and her childlike Italian.

The skin between us: a border, a map, a blank page. History and biology. The skin between us that kept  us apart and sheltered us against the hurt we inflicted on each other. The skin between us: membrane, veil, mirror. [...]

What are you?

Black and Italian. African American, Italian American. American.

Other. Biracial, Interracial. Mixed-blood, Half-Breed, High-Yellow, Redbone, Mulatta, Nigger, Dago, Guinea.

Where are you from?
I DON'T KNOW where I was conceived, but I was made in Harlem. Its topography is mapped on my body: the borderlines between neighboorhoods marked by streets that were forbidden to cross, the borderlines enforced by fear and anger, and transgressed by desire. The streets crossing east to west, north to south, like the web of veins beneath my skin.(p.26-27).

Here begins Kym Ragusa's investigations of her identity, split between two communities that hardly interacted with each other: the Italian and the African American communities of East and West Harlem. Her mother, stunningly beautiful (but not at all a tragic mulatta!) and young, with a genius IQ and a career in modeling is the last of a series of strong African American beauties in her family, all light skinned and unfortunate with men. Descended from a Pittsburgh community where German ancestors have mingled with African American former slaves, blond hair coexisting with a 'double-edged pride' of being black, so that their ethnicity was both emblem of honor and deep shame, the author struggled to understand the entanglements of race divisions. Her corkscrew hair, her grandmother Miriam told her, were her father's fault, the result of HIS African roots, rather than her own (which had produced red hair, by the way, of the sort Malcolm X had). The glamor of the Harlem Renaissance her grandmother had experienced, her friendship with Marilyn Monroe in Los Angeles and with some of the greatest poets and musicians working in the Harlem area clashed with the violence in the nieghboorhood. The writer experienced it first hand: a man was murdered in the apartment building where she lived and her mother was threatened with a gun by a drugaddict.

On the other side of the family, a noisy, poor Italian American family, her grandfather speaking always Calabrese and her grandmother Gilda always looking at her suspiciously, because of the color of her skin. Her Italian American relatives struggled to get along with the maternal side of her family: her grandmother Miriam and her aunts thinking that her father was too poor and working class to suit their taste. With a mostly absent father, who after the Vietnam war had become addicted to drugs, and a Puerto Rican step-mother to add into the salad bowl, the author relates how her family, after a whole life spent in the city, tried to adjust to the life in a small place: growing vegetables in the garden, for example.

Revolving around the figure of her two grandmothers Miriam and Gilda, who died one week apart from each other like two sisters crossing the ocean as immigrants to a new land, this memoir is written in an intimate way, never banal and always compelling. It challenges notions of fixed identity, of blackness and whiteness - her skin is sometimes lighter, other times the same as that of her Italian American friends, but it is always perceived as different by others. It strikes me that the two communities are different and similar in ways that I didn't expect: the neighboorhood of La Kalsa, in Palermo, getting rough at night time, resembles the Harlem and the Bronx of her childhood and teenage years. There, as well, civilizations meet: African and Asian immigrants living side by side with the Sicilian people, who also show the signs of the Arabian and the Norman dominations. Also, on her maternal side she can go back several generations to Sybela, a slave who escaped slavery with the master's son, but on her paternal side things are dimmer: one would expect the opposite. The trauma of immigration, together with the ghost of racial segregation add to the picture of a conflicted identity, but her "family portraits" are always affectionate and above all honest. Written with an evident gusto for storytelling, "The Skin Between Us" is a bridge between cultures, an ode to every family and every painful story that nonetheless hides a pleasant aftertaste.       

About the author: Kym Ragusa was born in New York City in 1966. She is a writer and a documentary filmmaker. Her short movies "Passing" and "Fuori/Outside" explore her double heritage. This is her first book.