4.12.2013

Interview with Sandro Bonvissuto

Sandro Bonvissuto is a “philosopher innkeeper” who wrote an extraordinary debut work, Dentro, published by Einaudi in 2012. I met the author at the Circolo 'l Caprissi shortly before he was awarded the “City of Cuneo Prize for the Primo Romanzo”, in a room covered by a pleasant frescoed ceiling and echoing with the light sound of footsteps on the parquet floor.

Inside is your primo romanzo, published by Einaudi, which today, November 15, 2013, celebrates eighty years of books. It has met with great success among the public and critics, and has won numerous literary awards, including the "City of Cuneo Award for Primo Romanzo." What has changed in you since you became a full-fledged writer?
Nothing, I live the same life as before. I work where I worked before and I'm a full-time dad, which is the most important job and the one that takes up the most of my time. Essentially, the hours spent writing are hours snatched from sleep and recovered from the night hours. Thus mine becomes a non-job, something done out of passion: instead of going to sleep, you write what you can, because nothing is owed. In terms of logistics, nothing has changed, apart from a little tiredness. However, the book has given me many beautiful experiences around Italy, and often, as with this festival, twinned with the festival of the same name in Chambéry, Savoy, even beyond the borders.

Inside tackles a very sensitive topic, one that very few people address: the situation in Italian prisons. What is the genesis of your novel?
When I realized I would be writing a book for a major publisher, I asked myself what a writer can do for the society in which he lives. It's true that art must be completely freed from ethical or moral demands in order to fully express itself, but it's right that the writer demonstrates dialogue, presence, and connection with the society in which he lives. I asked myself, "What can I do? What is the most pressing issue?" In my opinion, this was it. So I thought that, even if I can't solve this problem, we can talk about it, and I wanted it to be just another opportunity for dialogue. In this specific case, I created a work that, on the one hand, has the strength, truth, and immanence of a prisoner's letter, and, at the same time, offers opportunities for reflection on prison.

What could actually be done to bring our prisons up to the European average, also in light of the recent message sent to Parliament by President Giorgio Napolitano?
What they intend to do is a complex matter. I believe the challenge is to take democracy and bring it into prisons, because they are free zones, where things are not the same as they are outside.

Exactly a year ago, Ascanio Celestini presented his Pro Patria, a novel that deals with the same topics as Dentro, albeit in a dreamlike manner. What is the essential difference between the two works?
At their core is the same desire to reach the same goal through different paths, assuming one has one. In this case, there was. We even talked about it on an occasion in Mantua. The difference lies in the writing, practiced in the way closest to each person. He chose the dreamlike dimension; I tried to capture the reader and lead them there. For this reason, I made sure that the protagonist of the story didn't even have an identity that could in any way give the reader the opportunity to attribute the prison journey to a specific identity. I wanted the reader to recognize themselves in that narrator. If I had given him a name and some form of identity, the reader would probably have distanced themselves from the story in some way. Ascanio's choice is probably the most evocative.

Inside is a precise, detailed, cruel, and merciless novel at times, yet quite poetic in many passages. In particular, I was struck by how the protagonist moves between indecision and determination in his actions. How much do you identify with what he wrote?
The book speaks of things I have personal experience with, personal relationships, and personal opinions, but it's not about me. The author is different from the protagonist. I probably would have been less cynical or more indecisive than he was in other circumstances. The bond between the protagonist and the author is less solid than one might think.

Your novel is structured in three parts: prison, adolescence, and childhood. A life backwards, then. Why did you choose to construct Inside this way?
I didn't choose it: Inside was edited backwards. It was the editors at Einaudi who recommended this chronologically reversed editing. I was against it, but now I think it was a brilliant idea, because it brings to light the depth and importance of the first work, which is now the first, whereas before it was the last. The exit in the childhood story is beautiful, luminous, radiant, full of light, sunshine, and hope. The exit in the work of prison would have significantly darkened the atmosphere of the book, which rightly remains a book of hope. In this reversed draft, the novel takes on a Dantesque rhythm: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

“The wall isn't made to affect your body; if you don't touch it, it doesn't touch you. It's not something that hurts, it's an idea that hurts.” Can you comment on this short passage, which, in my opinion, is a true poem?
When the protagonist reaches the passage about the wall, there's a moment of reflection in which the prose lends itself to reflection. What he says isn't the truth of the wall; they're things he thinks in a logically described phenomenon, that of a man who arrives under the wall of a prison courtyard. He arrives from the wall and thinks, “Do you see it? It's a wall. I've never seen others so close. Maybe. But they weren't like this.” This is reflection, not prose. What convinces the reader is the empathy the protagonist inspires.

Inside, it ends with an emblematic phrase. “It's not true that we grow slowly and harmoniously; we grow all at once. In a day. In an hour. That's the story.” How important is childhood in the formation of each of us?
In my opinion, childhood matters most when it's bad. When it's devoid of affection, full of hardship, then childhood is remembered by those who lived it. I think it's beautiful to think of it as that age of which, deep down, you remember nothing. I had a serene and happy childhood, of which I remember a combination of happiness, serenity, and light. This means that there were no wounds or negative episodes. The perception of self and the conception of consciousness are things that, during childhood, we don't even know. In maturity, we experience a real metamorphosis, for which the protagonist states that childhood is the only time in life in which we are not the same person. This is due to physiology: during growth, cellular renewal occurs in the individual. Therefore, childhood remains a golden age, in which one is not dominated by superstructures.

Scena padre is a book coming out from Einaudi in which many of their authors, including yourself, discuss the role of the father in society. The role of the short story in literature, following the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Canadian Alice Munro, "a master of the contemporary short story," has undergone an immediate revolution. The three parts of Dentro can also be considered independent stories. What importance do you give to the short story?
The short story isn't very popular in Italy, and I admit this is strange, because we Italians have a great tradition of short stories. Let's not forget the short stories of Verga, Pirandello, Calvino, Fenoglio, Gadda, Landolfi, and Chiara. Alice Munro is a magnificent narrator. I believe that the short story evolves through seasons in individual countries' literary societies. It's probably gone out of fashion here. In America and the English-speaking world, evidently not. Italy, however, also had a season of short stories. Let's not forget that.

What books could never be missing from your personal library?
I'm not a great reader, I'm an average to mediocre reader. I'm a continental, a child of the European novel: that's why I read European authors. I read the classics of the twentieth century: Proust, Joyce, Svevo, and the Russian classics. I'm passionate about philosophy and books about philosophy. I read books where the prose supports the thought.

What are your next projects? Are you already writing your second novel?
If nothing unexpected happens, we'll write a novel.

Jacopo Giraudo