In the silence of provincial homes, while everything seems already written and destiny follows tracks inherited from generations, there are those who secretly sew their own rebellion. Melania has no superpowers, no saints in heaven, and yet, with needle, thread and a tenacity made of dreams, she transforms her life into an extraordinary epic. The narrator is Carlo Sorgia, a sensitive and versatile author, who in his latest novel “Io sono Melania” gives voice and face to a woman capable of challenging prejudice, gender limits and the tyranny of expectations.
We are in Sardinia, in the discreet belt of Cagliari. Melania is born and grows up in an environment that suffocates rather than protects. A stern mother, a loving but impotent father and a community that looks askance at anyone who dares to step out of line. For her, a female, a future is already packaged: typist, wife, mother. Or perhaps a nun, if she really wants to escape marriage. But Melania is not having it. Her revolution is silent and laborious: in the evening, when everyone is asleep, she makes clothes. And with every stitch she sews, she also sews a piece of her future.
Sorgia tells all this with a delicacy that never indulges in sentimentality. The novel, constructed as a long dialogue between the author and a now mature Melania, who from her home in Torre delle Stelle rereads (or recites) pages of diary, is a journey into memory and consciousness. Each word reveals not only the protagonist's professional rise - from a village dressmaker to a rising star in international fashion, alongside names like Valentino and Versace - but also her incessant confrontation with the role of mother, wife, woman.
The heart of the book is not only the success, but the journey. The sacrifices, the pain, the loss, the choices. Melania is not an unattainable heroine, she is a deeply human figure, fragile and strong at the same time. When she has to choose between career and family, she does not look for shortcuts. She decides, pays the price, but does not look back. And, in this sense, “I am Melania” is also a hymn to the courage of women who every day embroider impossible balances between work and affection, ambition and care, desire and responsibility.
Carlo Sorgia, born in 1949, is the author of several books that include poetry, autobiographical fiction, detective stories, historical novels and fairy tales .
But it is perhaps in the female portraits that he reaches one of his most authentic peaks. As in previous works – The Dance of Life, Story of a Life of Love, Is Blood Only a Liquid? – here too the author puts himself at the service of the story, with a clear and engaging writing, capable of creating empathy, but also of stimulating deep reflections.
“Io sono Melania” is a work that tells the story of a single life and at the same time many. It is the story of those who have not given up, of those who have chosen to be the architect of their own destiny. It is the dream of a little girl from Quartu that came true on the catwalks of Paris. But above all, it is a novel that reminds us that every woman has the stuff of dreams inside her: all it takes is the courage to tailor it.
