Idda

Idda

Two women who belong to very different and distant worlds: unexpectedly, one finds in the other something she had lost, while the other finds the strength to try to regain it. Marzano returns to the topics which informed her most successful books: identity, family, and love, the sentiment which most consumes us and the only one which can save us.

What remains of us when entire pieces of our existence have disappeared? A woman who has severed the ties with her past finds herself reflected in another, older, woman, who instead has lost all recollection of her past. By retracing the elderly woman’s story, for the first time she feels the need to recover her own, painful past, in order to discover who she is, and who she has become.

Alessandra is a plant biologist; she teaches in Paris, where she lives with Pierre. It has been years since she returned to Salento, where she was born and which she left after her mother died because she was unable to come to terms with the shadows of her own family. When Annie, Pierre’s elderly mother, is taken to a clinic because she is progressively losing her memory, Alessandra cares for her home, which must be put up for sale. Thus, as she opens drawers and closets, she discovers the universe of this woman – familiar and yet unknown – and is so fascinated by her that she begins to reconstruct her life, in part through her imagination, as though it were the only way to safeguard the woman’s identity now that she is lost in her oblivion. Or maybe Alessandra only wants to understand where the man she loves comes from. She never wanted to have children with Pierre, despite his insistence, and suddenly she is afraid that if she, too, were to lose her memory, no one would be able to remember it for her. As her relationship with Annie becomes increasingly intimate and almost filial, the words from her childhood resurface in her, along with all the memories she has been unable to cancel. It is time to come to terms with them, and in order to do so she must go back to where it all began.

Idda

Un roman passionnant sur l’identité, la mémoire et la puissance érosive des relations.

Annie est hospitalisée dans une résidence protégée, son monde se résume désormais à une chambre, la 315. Le passé s’efface, mélangeant les années, les lieux, les saisons. Peu importe qu’il s’agisse d’Alzheimer ou de démence sénile, ses souvenirs disparaissent, elle semble n’avoir besoin que d’amour. Alessandra, la compagne de son fils Pierre, l’assiste, l’écoute. Elle est professeure de biologie à l’université. À vingt-trois ans, elle a quitté les Pouilles, lorsque son monde s’est effondré : après la mort de sa mère, elle s’est enfuie pour ne plus jamais revenir. Elle a fermé la porte à ses souvenirs, elle a construit sa vie professionnelle et affective à Paris, « Point à la ligne » comme disait sa mère. Elle s’est toujours dit que l’important était le présent, mais alors que le rideau tombe sur les souvenirs d’Annie, alors qu’avec Pierre, elle range sa maison en triant les objets à jeter et ceux à conserver, elle sent resurgir des mots et des souvenirs que ni la langue française, ni le travail, ni l’amour pour Pierre n’ont réussi à effacer.