Wellington 2013 – «Solo le storie sono capaci di colmare gli squarci del dolore. Solo le storie ci aiutano a sopravvivere»: Autobiographic Traces in the Narratives of Dacia Maraini

The publication of Dacia Maraini’s "Bagheria" in 1993 and "La nave per Kobe" in 2001 indicate a significant foray into life writing by the author, and the beginning of a more concerted move towards self-representation, which continues in texts such as "La grande festa" (2011) and "Chiara di Assisi – Elogio della disobbedienza" (2013). It is, however, a genre that Maraini had previously admitted to being challenging for her to confront. This article considers a number of ‘autobiographic traces’ in Maraini’s earlier works as examples of fictionalized articulations of traumatic events and, likewise, how Maraini’s perceived difficulty with the genre manifests itself in "La nave per Kobe" through a certain level of textual turbulence. It explores the trouble that Maraini has in constructing the autobiographic ‘I’ before arguing that the inclusion of her mother’s diaries in this particular work gives Maraini the confidence needed to do so.