On the occasion of Marche Pride 2024 which will be held in Ancona on 22 June, Arcigay Comunitas Ancona is pleased to invite citizens to participate in the presentation of a one-of-a-kind text.
On Saturday 25 May at 6.00 pm at our headquarters in via Seppilli – Largo Staffette Partigiane the book “Ribelli alla Norma” (Luni Editrice 2024) will be presented for the first time in the Marche region in the presence of the translation editor Andrea Pancini.
The story of two transvestite prostitutes in the dark Japan of the 1930s, two existences on the margins of what is considered “norm”.
In Tokyo the attractive and elegant Aiko, lover of the street life of the metropolis and the ups and downs it can offer; in Osaka a mysterious “she”, desperately looking for a place in a squalid world marked by poverty. What life did people who did not conform to gender expectations face in a society like that of Japan, on the brink of World War II, increasingly militarized and ready to sacrifice everything?
Rebels against the norm collects two recently rediscovered stories.
The first, created by the pen of Nagareyama Ryūnosuke in 1931, is an intimate diary that tells of the fleeting nights of love of students, employees, workers and old gentlemen fleeing from the difficult reality of Tokyo’s economic depression. The second, from 1933, is by the militant writer Takeda Rintarō and outlines an effective portrait of Kamagasaki, a slum district of Osaka, where the memories of a distant past merge with the vivid visual – and olfactory – impressions of a varied and tormented by prostitutes and vagrants fighting for survival.
Andrea Pancini, editor of the translation of the volume, teacher of Japanese language and history at the Department of Political Science of the University of Pavia, will be present at the meeting. In addition to teaching Japanese, he is interested in social and gender history. He is an LGBTQIA+ activist and Drag artist.
