Florence, June 29, 2024 – Maya Angelou once said: “A woman who fights for herself, fights for all women.” And indeed, the fight is a dimension that has always united the female gender for the conquest of freedom and rights. However, there are some whose experiences have been forgotten, excluded or silenced. By lining them up, they compose a counter-history, a constellation of contrary and extraordinary voices. Here are the stories of women, captured by History to tell their story, who take the floor to tell their story with precision and irony in Sandra Landi’s new book “Another Story” (Le Lettere Editore). “Even though immersed in their historical climate – explains the author – they do not disdain to underline the contradictions of their and our present. As if they were capable of knowing what was said and written after them and how their contribution was used by posterity.” Sandra Landi with literary intentions makes them the protagonists of a polyphony of voices, starting with Lucy, the female Australopithecus, to reach Tina Anselmi, touching every era in choosing forgotten characters, like Gemma Donati, or almost unknown like Marozia femme terrible and last empress of the Roman pornocracy or systematically left out like Anita Garibaldi. Each story is accompanied by specific research paths for those who want to delve deeper and readings chosen to enrich the literary or historical specific. Imperfect biographies because they draw not only on historical and literary documentation, always carefully specified, but also on the author’s imagination. This is a useful book also for those teachers who intend to accompany their textbooks with these portraits, to highlight the stereotypes and prejudices built in every historical period to the detriment of the female world. And finally the “Eva Trial”, a one-act play born as a request from Margherita Hack to Sandra Landi, with the aim of absolving the first woman from the accusation of having caused all the evils of the world with original sin. “The book is part of a project for the prevention of violence against women that will be carried out in many schools – explains Landi – and the royalties will be donated to the Artemisia Anti-Violence Center in Florence, also as a stimulus to participation and social solidarity.” Sandra Landi, writer and essayist, works in the field of cultural anthropology and social sciences, with particular attention to life stories. She has collaborated and collaborates with the major national publishing houses and is translated into Spanish and German. For Le Lettere she published Ottavia e le altre (2018) which inaugurated the project “Punte di Spillo” – 38 events against violence against women. A performance for voices, action painting, ensemble and magnetic tape was taken from the story Ottavia, which is still performed and has landed in Montecitorio. www.sandralandi.it
