July 1929, Lipari. Michele is ten years old and was born on this splendid island not far from the coasts of Sicily. An island that the child perceives as a sleeping dinosaur: it represents something leathery and primordial that has its roots in our unconscious, it is the monster of the dream universe that lives inside each of us. Michele knows nothing of the people the regime has confined to his island and he doesn't ask himself any questions. Until he meets the Honorable, a former deputy, an anti-fascist of the first hour who is planning to escape from Lipari with two other opponents of fascism. The meeting becomes an unexpected friendship thanks to which Michele begins to become aware of the iniquity of the system in which he has lived up to that moment. A change that will lead him to overcome his fears, to face a thousand dangers, to face the violence that he himself suffers from the bully of the country. Anything to contribute to the success of the ingenious escape plan, which will ultimately lead not only to the freedom of the Honorable – who is none other than Emilio Lussu- but also to that of his heart and his spirit.
A novel at the same time historical and educational, " The breath of the dinosaur " (Giunti, 2023, pp. 256, also e-book) by Marco Marmeggi takes its cue from one of the most audacious blows inflicted on the repressive machine of the fascist regime: the daring escape from Lipari of Lussu and two of his companions in confinement.
First of all, we ask the author how he approached this adventurous story:
«Everything starts with a dinner with what later became a friend. I went to see Grazia Gotti, founder of the Drosselmeyer Academy, a couple of years ago because she had contacted me about a review of sea novels for children she was organizing in Genoa. There, between a glass of wine and a literary quotation, he looked at me and said: 'Do you want to write a novel about the escape of Carlo Rosselli, Emilio Lussu and Francesco Nitti from the fascist confinement of Lipari in 1929?'. That's all and I said yes, that I would at least try to throw something down. Then, during the historical study of the escape, deepening the characters and their biography, I fell in love with Emilio Lussu, the Rossomori knight as Giuseppe Fiori calls him in the homonymous biography published in 1985».
Why did you want to tell the story from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy?
«A historical novel for children must be able to involve an audience of young readers, giving them the opportunity to identify themselves, to enter history. The context and setting of the theme addressed, the events dealt with, the adult world of the protagonists, the theme of anti-fascism and police confinement needed to be somehow penetrated by a fantastic story, contaminated by a protagonist who could as a bridge between today's generations and a world that belongs to a century ago. This is why I chose Michele, a ten-year-old boy from Lipari, still poised between the world of childhood and adolescence, who comes into contact with history and shows some frames of it, so that the reader has the tools to take a trip back in time".
What are Michele's virtues that you wanted to bring out in the story?
«Michele is a child who comes from a poor, dignified, proletarian social class, who lives with little and dreams a lot. It represents a condition that in my opinion is that of many children today, even in our country, only that the concept of poverty has changed, it has been transformed, it is probably less brutal, but it exists. So Michele first of all wants to represent the world of possibility and hope. Understands, thanks to the acquaintance of Emilio Lussu and other characters in history, that every drive to improve one's living conditions must be accompanied by an awareness of the world around us and the possibility of changing it through cooperation with others, the school, the practice of claiming rights and the fight against injustices".
Why in your opinion, almost a hundred years after the events of the fascist regime, is it still important to talk about what fascism was?
"Because fascism is a phenomenon which, although finished in its twentieth-century totalitarian manifestation, still represents that push contrary to the extension and recognition of constitutional rights for all and for all, it is the phenomenon which tends to divide society into categories and to The exclusion of unwanted components from the dominant ideology is the opposite of the culture of peace, it is the conservative expression of relations between social classes. Fascism lurks in ignorance, in xenophobic sentiments, in the falsification of reality, in its total simplification, it exerts pressure on the worst feelings that dwell within us: fear of the other, the myth of violence, the fascination of war. Telling a story set in the times of fascism is, to some extent and above all today, always relevant».
Is Italy still a country where "sleeping dinosaurs" dwell?
«For Michele, the island of Lipari is a dinosaur that has been sleeping for more than seven hundred years and that absolutely shouldn't be woken up. It's scary and terrifying, but it's the engine that generates our fantastic thinking, which transforms our life experience into something that cannot be quantified, classified, measured, weighed. I like to think that our country is still full of sleeping dinosaurs, which with their breath feed the most brilliant, imaginative, unscrupulous ideas capable of delivering a better world than this to the new generations».