Oriana Fallaci was born in Florence, Italy. During World War II, she joined the resistance despite her youth, in the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Libert脿". Her father Edoardo Fallaci, a cabinet maker in Florence, was a political activist struggling to put an end to the dictatorship of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It was during this period that Fallaci was first exposed to the atrocities of war.
Fallaci began her journalistic career in her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the Italian paper Il mattino dell'Italia centrale in 1946. Since 1967 she worked as a war correspondent, in Vietnam, for the Indo-Pakistani War, in the Middle East and in South America. For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine L'Europeo and wrote for a number of leading newspapers and Epoca magazine. During the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre prior to the 1968 Summer Olympics, Fallaci was shot three times, dragged down stairs by her hair, and left for dead by Mexican forces. According to The New Yorker, her former support of the student activists "devolved into a dislike of Mexicans":
The demonstrations by immigrants in the United States these past few months "disgust" her, especially when protesters displayed the Mexican flag. "I don't love the Mexicans," Fallaci said, invoking her nasty treatment at the hands of Mexican police in 1968. "If you hold a gun and say, 'Choose who is worse between the Muslims and the Mexicans,' I have a moment of hesitation. Then I choose the Muslims, because they have broken my balls."
In the late 1970s, she had an affair with the subject of one of her interviews, Alexandros Panagoulis, who had been a solitary figure in the Greek resistance against the 1967 dictatorship, having been captured, heavily tortured and imprisoned for his (unsuccessful) assassination attempt against dictator and ex-Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Panagoulis died in 1976, under controversial circumstances, in a road accident. Fallaci maintained that Panagoulis was assassinated by remnants of the Greek military junta and her book Un Uomo (A Man) was inspired by the life of Panagoulis.
During her 1972 interview with Henry Kissinger, Kissinger agreed that the Vietnam War was a "useless war" and compared himself to "the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse".Kissinger later wrote that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press."
She has written several novels uncomfortably close to raw reality which have been bestsellers in Italy and widely translated. Fallaci, a fully emancipated and successful woman in the man's world of international political and battlefront journalism, has antagonized many feminists by her outright individualism, her championship of motherhood, and her idolization of heroic manhood. In journalism, her critics have felt that she has outraged the conventions of interviewing and reporting. As a novelist, she shatters the invisible diaphragm of literariness, and is accused of betraying, or simply failing literature.
Fallaci has twice received the St. Vincent Prize for journalism, as well as the Bancarella Prize (1971) for Nothing, and So Be It; Viareggio Prize (1979), for Un uomo: Romanzo; and Prix Antibes, 1993, for Inshallah. She received a D.Litt. from Columbia College (Chicago). She has lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Fallaci鈥檚 writings have been translated into 21 languages including English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek, Swedish, Polish, Croatian and Slovenian.
Fallaci was a life-long heavy smoker. She died on September 15, 2006 in her native Florence from breast cancer.
Lettera a un Bambino Mai Nato = Letter to a Child Never Born, Oriana Fallaci
Letter to a Child Never Born (1975) is a novel by Italian author and journalist Oriana Fallaci.
It is written as a letter by a young professional woman (Fallaci herself) to the fetus she carries in utero; it details the woman's struggle to choose between a career she loves and an unexpected pregnancy, explaining how life works with examples of her childhood, and warning him/her about the unfairness of the world. The English translation was first published in 1976. At the end of both the English and Italian version, the woman has a miscarriage.
Once in a while, I stumble upon an unheard of book written by someone who expresses everything I have ever felt and says it as eloquently and without any reservations as I would hope to someday. And I realize once again why reading is so vital to my existence. Only literature helps me make my peace with all the ugliness in the world and infuses me with the strength to carry on with whatever futile everyday doings I busy myself with, in the hope that someone somewhere has summarized the greater human condition with profound empathy and sensitivity for me to derive my solace from.
Oriana Fallaci makes no pretensions in this book. Doesn't sugar-coat her attempt at shaking the very rigid walls that make up the citadel of patriarchy, doesn't shy away from tackling the entire spectrum of burning issues which if you proceed to discuss with friends and acquaintances even now in 2013, will earn you the raised eyebrows of some, urgently conducted hushed discussion of your 'morals as a woman' behind your back by others and vehement denouncement by the rest. And to think this brave war correspondent from Italy, who had removed the 'hijab' or 'chador' forced on her during an interview with Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in addition to criticizing the imposed compulsion of wearing it, wrote this in 1975. (I am not going into the topic of her alleged Islamophobia)
A woman's right to her life over the life of her yet unborn child. Is there one? And not just that. When do we say that life comes into being? At the moment of conception or in the ninth month and, in some cases, the seventh month when the foetus actually becomes viable? How morally justifiable is it to ask a woman to behave, monitor her own mood changes, refrain from undertaking tasks which put a physical strain on her or treat her like an inanimate incubator designed to mold its existence around a foetus' needs? Is it okay to overlook the importance of the life of a full-fledged person of flesh and blood, with her own place in the world, taking only into consideration the hint of possibility of life that has taken roots inside of her? Given a choice, would an unborn child want to be born in a world like ours where a mother is unable to ensure her child's safety and well-being and slavery begins the moment we are liberated from our dark prison inside the mother's womb?
Oriana Fallaci writes with a poetic flair, fearlessly lending her voice to many questions which nearly all of us (specially women) battle with in solitude over a lifetime, but are often unable to articulate these ideas in front of an audience in fear of backlash by a predominantly conservative society. The central ideas are presented in the form of a young woman's internal monologue, in which she confronts her own fears, doubts, misgivings and suppressed anger while pretending to converse with her unborn child.
As I reached the end of the book I couldn't help but wonder if the irony of mostly men framing abortion laws in almost all nations of the world would have registered with the ones at the helm of matters if they had a copy of this book? Probably not. After all, a writer like Fallaci is more likely to be labelled a 'radical feminist' and her views snubbed coldly with a patronizing shake of the head without further thought.
I haven't 5-starred this book merely because it deals with a strongly feminist humanist theme or because it is so deftly written but also because it neatly presents a logical argument both in favor and in opposition of nearly every pronouncement of the pregnant woman. The unnamed protagonist's voice keeps shifting between the extremities of calm rationality and impatient resentment, sometimes making irrefutably cogent statements in front of an imagined jury silently judging her thoughts and actions, and sometimes just lashing out in cold fury at the unfairness with which the world treats her. She is as humane and prone to error as any one of us, which is why it is most important to acknowledge that our established notions of life, death and motherhood could be just as flawed.
This is a very difficult book to review, seeing as I don't have a womb, thus will never carry a child. The whole narrative is a juggernaut of intense, heartrending and headline size sentences, presumably a fictional account of Fallaci's miscarriage, but I found her highly inflated state of emotion did begin to lose it's power later on. The dream sequences and imagined dialog from the viewpoint of the unborn child were a clever idea, and no doubt the book will be truly unforgettable for some, but for me, because she pulls towards the argument of pro-life and abortion鈥攁 heavy subject that I'd rather not dwell on right now, it didn't really stay with me for very long.
Ero ancora al liceo quando sentii parlare per la prima volta di Oriana Fallaci. Questo suo tormentatissimo libro, appena edito, entr貌 in casa mia accompagnato da un'inconsueta assenza di commenti. In Italia, invece, il dibattito era molto acceso. Lessi il libro d'un fiato. Ricordo che mi piacque il tono del dialogo intimo, austero e a tratti spietato. Mi colp矛 la sincerit脿 disarmante delle riflessioni, la loro schiettezza, libera dai perbenismi di cui si vestivano, e si vestono, i pensieri espressi a voce. Ricordo il raccapriccio, pi霉 che la delusione, che suscitarono in me le parole scarne con cui la madre si rivolge al feto annunciandone la morte. Mi fece soffrire (un tormento oscuro, nascosto) il mio primo reale confronto con l'idea di sopprimere volontariamente un'inerme speranza. Negare una potenziale esistenza, ancora inespressa ma potenzialmente compiuta, pur racchiusa nei movimenti istintivi e indifesi di un cucciolo umano: qualcosa in me si ribellava all'idea pazzesca di dire no alla nostra stessa vita ab origine, di opporsi al determinismo primo e ineffabile della Natura stessa. Forse anche per via dei miei freschi studi classici.
Mezza Italia inneggiava alla scrittrice come a una paladina dei diritti civili e delle donne, come a un'abilissima pittrice espressionista capace di rappresentare le tinte crepuscolari del tormento pi霉 atroce, unitamente alle ragioni della Ragione. L'altra mezza inorridiva, esplicitamente o in silenzio: alcuni in semplice, e/o semplicistica, osservanza dei dettami di Santa Romana Chiesa, oppure coerentemente fedeli a un legittimo credo; altri con maggiore tormento, incerti di fronte al crollo di una barriera etica tanto grande, interdetti di fronte alla sfrontatezza di un simile arbitrio ideologico. Ci貌 che non avevo capito io, uomo in erba, e che - a mio giudizio - non aveva capito una gran parte degli italiani, era il tono giornalistico di rappresentazione della realt脿, che permeava lo scritto della signora Fallaci. Questo libro non era uno spot in favore della legge sull'aborto, n茅 - au contraire - un atto di denuncia. La signora Fallaci stava semplicemente fotografando una faccia della realt脿. Con la penna, unico strumento capace di ritrarre anche l'animo umano. Questa istantanea prodigiosa divenne uno "specchio" per chiunque. Ognuno, in un modo o nell'altro, vi si scopr矛 ritratto, e fu sbattuto di fronte all'obbligo morale di verificare la saldezza dei propri convincimenti. Quali che fossero. Come spesso accade, quando i temi sono tanto profondi e delicati, la reazione fu scomposta, accesa e - su larga scala - strumentale.
En mi largo viaje a trav茅s de la tem谩tica "maternidad" me top茅 con Oriana Fallaci. Carta a un ni帽o que nunca naci贸 fue interesante a la par que desgarrador. Adem谩s, no pierdo de vista la fecha en la que fue escrito.
"Il mio pensiero si appanna鈥e mie palpebre sembrano piombo鈥鈥� il sonno o la fine? Non devo cedere al sonno, alla fine. Aiutami a stare sveglia, rispondimi: fu difficile usare le ali? Ti spararono in molti? Gli sparasti a tua volta? Ti oppressero nel formicaio? Cedesti alle delusioni e alle rabbie oppure rimanesti dritto come un albero forte? Scopristi se c鈥櫭� la felicit脿, la libert脿, la bont脿, l鈥檃more? Spero che i miei consigli ti siano serviti. Spero che tu non abbia mai urlato l鈥檃troce bestemmia 鈥減erch茅 sono nato?鈥�. Spero che tu abbia concluso che ne valeva la pena: a costo di soffrire, a costo di morire. Sono cos矛 orgogliosa d鈥檃verti tirato fuori dal nulla a costo di soffrire, a costo di morire."
Penna di rara efficacia quella della Fallaci. Un flusso di coscienza capace di risvegliare l'opinione pubblica negli anni '70, con una lucidit脿 che non cede mai il passo al fatidico e tormentato processo di costruzione e decostruzione sostenuto nell'opera. Quello che, purtroppo, deturpa l'esercizio 猫 l'esasperata - quasi artificiosa - visione nichilista che avvelena la prosa: la vita 猫 compromesso; l'autonomia di pensiero non pu貌 prescindere dal dialogo, dalla consapevolezza che esistano anche gli altri. Davvero un peccato che la presunzione e l'egocentrismo intellettuale abbiano contaminato quello che poteva essere un trattato perfetto sull'esercizio del dubbio. Meravigliosa, invece, la riconciliazione finale verso la vita, unica parte dell'opera che si libera dalle catene dell'astio per abbracciare l'imponderabilit脿 dell'esistenza.
One of the most profoundly sad books I've ever read, Letter to a Child Never Born is a deeply personal conversation between a woman and her unborn child. You might call it a monologue, but to me it feels more like a dialogue, even if the child this 'letter' is directed to is still a fetus. The way Fallaci addresses the child makes it seem all too real. Yes, the fetus doesn't directly answer the mother, but one can feel there is a bond, a bond that grows as the novel progresses. Isn't pregnancy one of the greatest mysteries of life? Surely there are many bonds that tie a mother to her child. One might call this book an epistolary novel, as it is (as the title implies) written as a letter from a woman to her unborn child. I've called it a written dialogue, but I don't think it really matters how we classify it, what matter is that it is an exceptional novel.
Clearly, the book is, in many ways, autobiographical. I've just called it a deeply personal book, but it is a also a philosophical one. It questions life, gender roles, personal responsibility and freedom, abortion and parenting. It speaks of difficult topics with intelligence, honesty and bravery. It speaks of what is like to be a woman. A woman that loves her job, that is passionate about her writing and that is afraid to give up her artistic freedom because of pregnancy. Letter To a Child Never Born is a personal tale, but it is also a philosophical discussion. With so many ideas thrown around, discussed it detail and explained with eloquence, at times it seems like a collection of essayist writing, and yet it remains a personal story of an unplanned pregnancy. It's a brilliant novel, in the every sense of the word. Beautifully written, sensitive and sensible recount of what it feels like to be a woman.
I remember seeing some documentary in which it was mentioned that some Italian feminist have accused Fallaci of speaking against abortion, but that is not what this book is about. Quite on the contrary, it could even be called a feminist novel as it can easily be placed within the context of seventies feminism. It was written in a time when feminism still made sense, not like today when it sadly seems to be more about accusing men for everything, then about empowering women. Anyhow, this book is no pamphlet, and it's certainly neither pro or anti abortion. At one point Fallaci even asks the question whether we have the right to bring any child into this world of suffering? Does any child ask to be born? In reality, this is a book that speaks of the complex issues and isn't afraid to ask difficult questions.
The story of a young professional unmarried woman struggling with a difficult decision of whether or not to keep her child is not dated. Life will always present us with difficult choices. One way or another, parenting is always a complex subject. Sometimes not becoming a parent is not a choice, but an unfortunate accident or a result of health problems. Still, the existential questions of parenting are always there, even if we are not fortunate to realize ourselves as parents. There is always guilt and self-questioning, both for parents and childless adults. In this book, the pregnant woman (possibly the author herself) feels herself shunned by society, questioned by her gynecologist but in reality all that is secondary. Perhaps becoming a mother is most often a deeply personal choice. Perhaps it is never an easy one.
I felt that this book captures wonderfully all the complexities of being a woman. It's intelligent, brave and emotional. It was the second book by Fallaci that I have read. It's been years since I read it, but I remember it so clearly. Letter to a Child Never Born is a powerful pregnancy tale is there ever was one. I would recommend it to every adult person.