A Movement of Many Voices

A precious bond unites the women’s movement with the Seventies, subsequently almost entirely obscured. In reality, swallowed up by the dramatic events of the following years, the Seventies have become a kind of myth. Untouchable, or rather to be forgotten. And yet much of them—the history of feminism, the value of personal experience in its close connection with political, collective experience—represents an original way of thinking about and living reality, and not only for women, that must be remembered and put into practice. With A Movement of Many Voices Maria Schiavo dares to do so. Following the thread of memory, she retraces those years in a narrative that is an intense interweaving of individual voices and chorality, in which the past comes alive and still questions the present.

Maria Schiavo was born in Palermo in 1940. In 1977 she co-founded the Women’s Bookshop of Turin. In addition to articles and short stories, she has published: Macellum, storia violenta di donne e di mercato (La Tartaruga, 1979); Margarethe von Trotta, ovvero l’onore ritrovato (Aiace, 1981); Discorso eretico alla Fatalità (Giunti, 1990, Actes Sud, 1995). In 1993 she edited a collection of letters by Madame de Sévigné, Alla Figlia lontana. Lettere 1671-1690 (Editori Riuniti, 1993). In 1996, in Quaderni di via Dogana, Amata alla luce, ritratto di Marilyn appeared, reprinted in 1999 by Tre Lune publishing house.

The volume was produced thanks to a contribution from the Cariplo Foundation.