VISIONI | RAIY – In Conversation With Gabriella Ghermandi
"I wrote this novel with great love because I wanted to do it since I was a girl, when the era of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia was not that far away," novelist and musician Gabriella Ghermandi says.
Gabriella Ghermandi is a novelist and musician. Making her literary debut with Queen of Flowers and Pearls (2007), a novel set during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in the fascist era between 1935 and 1941, with her projects, which include writing, oral storytelling and music, Ghermandi explores and sheds light on fundamental aspects of the historical and cultural intersectionality of her two homelands, Italy and Ethiopia.
In this new episode of VISIONI | RAIY, Ghermandi explores the various ever-changing forms of her artistic practice; she talks about creating a counter-narrative of the Italian occupation in Ethiopia with her novel; about the ways young generations write and tell their stories; about rap, and about how art has saved her.
VISIONI | RAIY is a series of conversations with Italian-Ethiopians artists and creatives. We talk about their life, work and vision—raiy in Amharic—delving into the different aspects of an Italian and Ethiopian identity, between presence and absence withing geographical, cultural and social boundaries.
VISIONI | RAIY is curated and produced by GRIOT in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Abeba. The series is presented on the occasion of the XXI Week of The Italian Language in the World.
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