The book: Secondigliano. Stephanie is ten years old and every time she comes home she complains to her mother because her cousins play outside and she does not. The reason is simple: they can because they are boys, whereas she is a girl. After school, she sits down to read on the balcony, the only outdoor space she is allowed to use. Stephanie studies and studies because she knows that words are her only defense against the world. Her grandmother told her so in the afternoons spent at her house, two floors below in the same apartment block: «For girls, everything is more difficult. You must learn to defend yourself. You must always keep the courage to speak, Stephanie». And if she says so, it must be true. Besides, her grandmother is Nannina de Gennaro, known as Nannina la Cuntastroppole, the storyteller. For some, she is just an old madwoman; for others, she is the one who, thanks to her cunti, the stories recited in courtyards, gave identity and dignity to mothers worn down by poverty and by men's arrogance. With her stories, Nannina gave a face to those who had none, redeemed the weakest, made people laugh and cry. But now it is up to Stephanie to reclaim her voice, to seek redemption in the cunti, her own redemption, that of a girl who has a dream: to study and discover freedom. Stefania Spanò takes us into the heart of a reality where, among the alleys, courtyards and squares, the echo of traditions can still be heard. The echo of a past that never truly passed. The echo of a language that is music. The echo of gestures and movements that make every place an open-air theatre. Two protagonists, two generations, two different Secondiglianos that meet and clash. One thing never changes: the importance of words and stories. Today as then. Stefania Spanò is a storyteller, LIS interpreter and support teacher in lower secondary school. For years she has led workshops in theatre, creative writing, empathetic communication and visual poetry in the troubled suburbs of the Naples metropolitan area, in the rest of Italy and abroad. As a storyteller she carries around the cunti of the family tradition and those written by her. She dreams of travelling around the world with her scugnizzi and returning to Secondigliano with antidotes and exotic potions of civil disobedience. This is her first novel.
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The book: Secondigliano. Stephanie is ten years old and every time she comes home she complains to her mother because her cousins play outside and she does not. The reason is simple: they can because they are boys, whereas she is a girl. After school, she sits down to read on the balcony, the only outdoor space she is allowed to use. Stephanie studies and studies because she knows that words are her only defense against the world. Her grandmother told her so in the afternoons spent at her house, two floors below in the same apartment block: «For girls, everything is more difficult. You must learn to defend yourself. You must always keep the courage to speak, Stephanie». And if she says so, it must be true. Besides, her grandmother is Nannina de Gennaro, known as Nannina la Cuntastroppole, the storyteller. For some, she is just an old madwoman; for others, she is the one who, thanks to her cunti, the stories recited in courtyards, gave identity and dignity to mothers worn down by poverty and by men's arrogance. With her stories, Nannina gave a face to those who had none, redeemed the weakest, made people laugh and cry. But now it is up to Stephanie to reclaim her voice, to seek redemption in the cunti, her own redemption, that of a girl who has a dream: to study and discover freedom. Stefania Spanò takes us into the heart of a reality where, among the alleys, courtyards and squares, the echo of traditions can still be heard. The echo of a past that never truly passed. The echo of a language that is music. The echo of gestures and movements that make every place an open-air theatre. Two protagonists, two generations, two different Secondiglianos that meet and clash. One thing never changes: the importance of words and stories. Today as then. Stefania Spanò is a storyteller, LIS interpreter and support teacher in lower secondary school. For years she has led workshops in theatre, creative writing, empathetic communication and visual poetry in the troubled suburbs of the Naples metropolitan area, in the rest of Italy and abroad. As a storyteller she carries around the cunti of the family tradition and those written by her. She dreams of travelling around the world with her scugnizzi and returning to Secondigliano with antidotes and exotic potions of civil disobedience. This is her first novel.
