GENOA – Books without pages but with a mouth to tell their story made of mistakes, regrets, joys and redemptions: yesterday in the theater of the Genoa prison twelve inmates were transformed into human books to tell their “readers” about themselves” that, as happens in bookstores, they only knew the title and the back cover.
“It is an experience that I recommend, to say that it is interesting is an understatement” says Paola as soon as she leaves the theater after reading Gavino’s story entitled “The 500 meters”, a story that begins with “small crimes committed partly due to young age, partly due to unfavorable family conditions” and which deals with the drama of “this big monster, the addiction to alcohol that scares him more than anything” and which makes him have doubts about his chances of reintegration into society. “I will never forget Andrea” says Elena, who has just read “The Day of Evil”. “She gave me a piece of her life,” she explains, “that’s what living books do. They are stories that you carry with you, they are half-hour experiences but they last.”
All within the prison, which “is a bit uncomfortable and so even if we have it in the city we can’t imagine it, we don’t want to think about it” Elena admits. “The prison is behind a wall and the city does not know it” explains Ulderico Maggi of Abcittà, who smilingly says of the Living Library managed by the cooperative of which it is part that it is the “oldest thing in the world: two people talking to each other and knowing each other“.
“There was a long process of preparation inside the Marassi prison with these people who chose to dedicate an episode of their lives to become the subject of their own human book – says Maggi -. Some spoke of recent situations inside the prison, others of their entry or life outside. It is also liberating for them and the reader arrives, many here have never entered a prison, and comes into direct contact with the people and their story. The story of oneself has great strength and great impact, there is a strong intensity in this meeting in such a significant place. The Living Library is used in many situations to address many other social prejudices, towards immigrants or people with different sexual orientations, towards people with disabilities. We all have prejudices – he concludes – even if sometimes we don’t realize it.”
There was also one of the readers Francesca Corso, the councilor for the development of policies for the prevention and combating of the phenomena of hardship and loneliness of the Municipality of Genoa, who promoted the project together with the Ligurian public theatre. “As the Municipality of Genoa we have embraced Abcittà’s proposal, we have already made several episodes in other places but this time I decided to move to prison: there are prisoners telling the stories and we readers have the opportunity to listen, what which isn’t done often nowadays, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for citizens which will be repeated on 8 June. The context of prison is not very well known and I wanted to propose this reality so that it could be discovered.”
“The prison is part of the city” declares the director Tullia Ardito on a day where penitentiary institutions were under the spotlight for the flash mob that addressed the drama of suicides in prison in front of the Genoa court, 31 in Italy in 2024 alone. “We need invest more in prison, in the resources, in the psychologists, in the operators – he explains -. Investing in what more can and should be done. We hope that the resources for the prison, the work of the inmates and so on will be increased”. Ardito claims the commitment of the Marassi prison in trying to “put in place more and more activities and more operators to meet everyone’s needs, even the most fragile” and on a day like the one dedicated to the Living Library this commitment seems to have borne fruit: “We were very happy to participate, like the 12 prisoners – he says -. For them it’s a wonderful experience, they meet people and feel part of the citythey talk about their lives, their families and their desire for redemption”.
