Rola: a Stranger, my Body

Original title:Rola: Un estraneo, il mio corpo

By: Balducci L.

First published in Italy: Edizioni Controluce, 2020

Genere: Novel

Overview: Rocca di Papa, 1958. A 27-year-old tall, blonde, elegant girl in a little black dress enters the Registry Office. She hands her ID to the clerk, who opens it, reads it… then reads it again, shifting his gaze from the document to the girl. “Sorry, but there must be a mistake here; this document cannot be yours”. “No, look, it's really my document and that's why I'm here”. “As you can see, I am a woman, so I would like you to issue me a new ID”. Who was that woman? What had happened to her before that morning? Luciana Balducci weaves a personal story that will lead that woman to cover a giant distance on a difficult road, between what she was and what she would become. Thanks to her obstinacy, she will reach the longed-for social redemption, for herself and for others: all those who seek their exact place in the world. Was she fulfilled?
If I could answer in just a few lines, I would rely on a famous passage from a poem by Emily Dickinson: “I took one Draught of Life – I'll tell you what I paid – precisely an existence – The market price, they said.”