giovedì 12 dicembre 2013

Interview with the Florentine writer Fabrizio Ulivieri author of "Il Sorriso della Meretrice" ebook on Amazon




Interview by Ilaria Gelichi

IL SORRISO DELLA MERETRICE Amazon


The classic question : how did the book start?

It has been bred by the belly. Not by the brain. The stomach is a second brain in all respects . It is able to think independently of the first brain, that of the skull, to be understood.
For this reason, the book has dark tones, this brain - the stomach - works in the darkness and in silence. As the fecal matter the protagonists also  looking for a way out. A lumen beyond the orifice from which they communicate between their inner world and the outer .
It ' s a book born mainly at the end of a love affair, passionate but negative because of a woman who apparently was bad but I thought was good. Instead she was really bad while looking good.
A belly centered woman, of basic feelings : eat, drink, fuck and defecate. And a less more ...

However, in the book there are often references to Love, to the impossibility of Love and yet it seems that there is an intense search for Love

Yes, Love is the lumen characters strive for to get the orifice that illuminates the lives of niche of these negative and belly centered characters. This is the unique feeling that can get them out of the darkness . They live in a borderline world ( sphincteric ) between the darkness of their painless despair (Nothingness), and the love that can possibly redeem them, but it is as if they could see it through a tiny hole through which they fail to pass

Women are often painted in a negative way

it's not true in "Ninfomane", for example, I underline a positive role of women's sexuality. It's not a negative vision of women at all. It's a way to re-establish their roles . The woman's apparent negativity that comes from the book goes as far back as the archetypal role: woman as a mother , woman  as a prey and as an object of exchange, woman as a whore , woman as a temptress , woman as an incomprehensible object more than a sexual object ... archetypes are actually difficult to conciliate with the women modern role advancement. Today there really is too much confusion with roles. The archetypes at least help us to identify the starting point from which we originated and to which we belong and will belong forever. The origin is in us and never abandons us as the etymology of words that century after century expands their meaning but still entails the well rooted initial meaning

It 's a book apparently simple but dense

It 's the book that I wanted  to make people think, first of all . I hope I succeeded

Why microstories (microracconti)?

It 's the lesson of socialmedia : Facebook , Twitter... The contents have to be visualized rather than read. Thus, I forced myself to shorten the reading time. The thing that amazed me is that as I wrote the stories  and as I was posting them on the blog I remained surprised by the fact that most of the clickers/viewers/readers were from the United States , Russia, Ukraine and Japan. I even had confirmation to have readers who never read books or very rarely . Certainly I think this is due to the shortness of the reading time that makes these stories readable to even those who maybe have difficulty reading long texts but they could easily read such texts ...

What do you think of Italian readers and publishers?

About Italian readers I don't know what to say , except that the majority has a globalized and visual taste. They prefer to see instead of thinking . Reading should lead people to think and not to "see". But we live in the era of social media where the image is more important than the content .
Regarding Italian publishers I only have negative things to say. Provincial, myopic , unable to look beyond the neo-realism that still dominates in the choking Italian culture, from literature to cinema to politics. Can you imagine that Elena Ferrante is considered one of the greatest Italian writers!

What are your expectations about your book?

I do not have many expectations . Without a big publisher behind you you don't go far . At any rate the book is built according to my way of thinking , according to beliefs: I write to create , to learn and fight. A book that compels people to think,  a book that will strike you , that will take you up to the heaven but also into the hell ...

The author's relationship with the city of Florence. You often cite Florence in your books

Yes, I often quote the city . I often quote its libraries , its cafes, its cinemas , its restaurants ... Florence, although sometimes suffocates me , is an international city, charming, seductive, sexy ... Some evenings in the winter when it is dark and cold, walking along the streets, observing the colors, and smelling makes you feel as if you are walking through a fairytale world. My loves, my lovers , the characters in my books are born here and they die here, in this city .
In "The Smile of the Whore " there is a microracconto entirely dedicated to Caffè Strozzi, one of my favorite places in Florence

Plans for the future

I'm working on a novel, the title at this moment is " Un cattivo soggetto" but at the same time I continue writing stories, and miniracconti miniriflessioni ... as well as the rewriting of texts already published by other authors that lead me to explore new territories and to do style and plotting exercises which I find very interesting.
I speak only through stories . If I have criticisms to make of society, politics, culture, I do it through my stories ... I believe that the time has come to stop complaining . We live in a country of lamentoni (people who always complain) unable to give solutions because they are not even looking for them. Complaining is easy, it is difficult to find solutions . We have this political : the worst political class ever (maybe). Therefore there are only two paths to follow: either take the guns and knock it down or make the most of it by trying to do your job in the best way you can conscious, that the political class does not give us any help and will never give us any help .