Con l’ascia dietro le nostre spalle. Amelia Rosselli

Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) was the most unmistakable voice in 20th-century poetry in Italy.

The finest of the historic avant-garde sought to process an unforgivable experience: the fascists’ murders of her father and uncle, Carlo and Nello Rosselli in France in 1937. But Rosselli did so by shunning the ‘blackmail’ of biography. And it’s easy to understand why: more than others, in the words of Manganelli, she had “something to say”. The weight of the most tragic story of the century, however, was a burden she bore until she fell, one cold winter afternoon, from a window in Rome.

The volume is part of the OILÀ series, edited by Chiara Alessi, which presents the stories of female protagonists of the twentieth century. Women who, on the Italian and international creative scene (from design to fashion, architecture, music, illustration, graphics, photography and literature) have distinguished themselves in fields and occupations that have always been considered the prerogative of men. The books, meant to be read aloud from start to finish in forty-five minutes—a short journey—are accounts of people conducted through a special lens on their biographies, work, private lives and public achievements.

The graphic design is by Studio Sonnoli.