Review (Armando Editore 2018)
by Roby Guerra
It seems like
a modern fairy tale with the classic happy ending and the author is nowadays a
well-known writer of children's books. And maybe in a few centuries this book
will be perceived like one of them. Instead, it is a dramatically
autobiographical book.
It was 1979,
someone in the West pre Radical Chic and pompously progressive, actually
communist, praised the so-called Islamic revolution of Khomeini. On the other
hand, Iran, ex Persia, even cradle of civilization, entered a nightmare which
still persists, despite two wars in the western gulf, the fall of Saddam
himself, etc.
In the Persia
of the so-called Scià and Soraya, needless to say ... a regime that was not so
democratic but at least characterized by a certain Western modernity, including
some rights for women.
A lucky girl,
the daughter of a well-off family, is struck by a metaphorical shower of
revolutionary radiation and engages in a long escape towards Europe.
Only at the
end of a long journey, with her childhood and dreams slaughtered, the little
Lily, who is the author herself (and her family) will find in Switzerland
conditions of relative balance and gradually the peace they seemed to have
lost.
Becoming
adult, Lily Amis will achieve the "perfect" integration: graduate in
Web Marketing, writer and illustrator for children, an activist for civil and
human rights, also known by the general public since 2015, after another the
umpteenth crisis in Syria, still related to the civil war and the problem of
political refugees: almost a circle that closes, but just mockingly ... a
replay of her experience with the original Islamic revolution in Persia,
fortunately in a "opposite" personal and experiential safety. Now,
beyond the will for beauty, strength and creativity of the author, even
transcending the aforementioned historical dynamics, just try to imagine what
experience and trauma struck the little Lily. This kind of dramatic events are
endlessly multiplied in children’ perception: in just one stroke, for example,
even beyond the tragic risks of mere survival, all the normal fears of
childhood materialize in real life, having as unique "stellar"
shields their fathers and mothers, alternatively involved in dynamics not only
external but also unsustainable internal, in constant insecurity and infected
by viruses and psychic malware always lurking. The existential and historical
development of the little future writer is almost miraculous, a work of art
that is able to sublimate even its indelible psychic scars. (The Nothing and
the absurd mystery of Life remains eternal, as the author herself confesses ..).
The book
itself is a small - great work of art, rare and atypical for many modulations:
the personal story itself is perfectly intertwined with the parallel story of
many other protagonists of the diaspora post Khomeini: therefore it assumes an
enhanced value of collective memory, given the abrupt explosion of the
phenomenon of migration and in particular of war refugees.
Some
considerations beyond the easy-minded rhetoric that still pervade and pollute
Europe based on similar problems: since 1979 Europeans have learned very little
in order to distinguish between war refugees and other questionable types of
migrants.
The art of
life of Lily Amis, and this book specifically, would be fundamental to educate
people - a small great diary of Anne Frank of our time, beyond all the small
talks around us: it also gives an utopian but possible message. The author's
life art, in the luminous and creative end, is a prospective horizon against
all the liquid and still perilous chaos for current migrants.