A teenager and the violent relationship between her parents: the debut of Marianna Marando

There are books that arise from an urgency, a story insinuates itself and asks to be translated into writing. It is said, among those who write, that a story deserves to be told if it stands the test of time and remains there knocking with an insistent voice. Marianna Marando’s book, From the soul and the world. Traveling with the Tigerpublished by Kromatoedizioni, was born under the lucky star of a powerful and mature voice.

The time was propitious for the flow of words, so much so that, as soon as he was born, he took confident steps into the world. From the soul and the world. Traveling with the Tiger it is a first work and a small narrative jewel. A true story that has the gift of being translated into a Bildungsroman. The author, with a game of temporal connections, takes us into the life of the protagonist, with whom we go through the fragile years of childhood and the turbulent ones of adolescence. The background, which agitates the emotional register of the years of growth, is the unpretentiously violent relationship between the parents.

The raw narration of the moments of explosion of souls and violence within the domestic walls, thanks to the author’s narrative ability, allows us to fully participate in the family drama and the intimate experience of the protagonist who was still a child and then an adolescent, punctuated by the gaze of the adult woman, who rereads her own family story and that of her parents, identifying the genesis of conflicts, fractures and crises, which first of all concern every single component of the story, each with its own existential path, with its own choices and responsibilities.

The color scenarios are those of an Italy that still has faith in economic progress, but which still cannot pronounce the word “divorce” and limits itself to spying behind the door for family dramas. The protagonist’s growth process is supported by the love of her maternal grandparents, but above all by her deep bond with her grandmother, teacher and guide through the turmoil of her life. This affective and almost magical function of the relationship with the grandmother is reflected in the pages that intersperse the chapters and punctuate them with the verses and teachings of the great poets and mystics of all times and traditions.

Here the Tiger makes their appearance, the dimension of the journey in the world and within one’s own existence, thanks to the deep rooting in one’s own inner strength, which has its roots in that unconditional love received from grandparents and learned as a teaching. Marianna Marando becomes a “curandera” for us. In the elliptical movement of this narrative, she realigns all the elements of an entire life, of every possible life, and offers us a personal and authentic viaticum, a compass in the complex journey of existence.