In Sixth form 1939, a young Jewish girl is in her last year at school.
She has professors she admires, headmasters who blare propaganda and make inflated speeches, and one teacher — a vitriolic portrait of fascist contempt for truth and justice — whom she loathes for his bullying and his contemptible sense of superiority.
This brief, wonderful and moving novel turns on a postcard the young Marcella - on a holiday trip to the Aeolian island of Lipari, where enemies of the regime are imprisoned—sends to the hated professor, putting an X on the prison window and saying that’s where the professor belongs. A piece of frivolity, an act of freedom? She finds herself on trial for contempt of state.
The writing is serene and lucid, the time and the place beautifully set in the minimum number of words, but the subject, the corruption that comes with politics, is made mercilessly clear. How can one grow up, if not by asserting one’s own freedom?
Translated by Keith Botsford.
About the Author
MARCELLA OLSCHKI, a writer-journalist, has written only two books, both recognized as classics in her native Italy. Born in 1921, she is a journalist and editor of Il Mondo, La Citta and Il Giornale di Brescia.
| 
