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Book of the Week: Letters from Italy

Book of the Week: Letters from Italy: Episode 4: Dacia Maraini

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Dacia Maraini

Episode 4

Episode 4: Dacia Maraini

Letters from Italy

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Letters from Italy, Dacia Maraini

Novelist and playwright Dacia Maraini delivers a letter about Italy today.

Dacia Maraini, novelist and playwright and established figure in the Italian literary landscape, delivers a letter about Italy today.

5 leading Italians deliver letters about Italy today, the dangers and the possibilities.

In this, the fourth letter, we hear from one of Italy's leading novelists and playwrights, Dacia Maraini.

Dacia has a reputation as a campaigning literary figure and she suggests this might have something to do with her extraordinary blend of ancestors from four nations, and her early life in Japan where she spent two years with her parents in a Japanese concentration camp.

She talks of her concerns about Italy today in terms of what she sees as the mis-information of Television which has been in the hands of one man for so long. She makes no bones about the fact that she's not a fan of Silvio Berlusconi but her real concern is that the mentality of winning at all costs has been fed by the diet of Television contests and ideas about wealth meaning achievement. This, she believes is a particular threat to women who have taken a step backwards - appearing little more than prizes in the 'game'.

She hopes the new elections herald something very new and highlights the presence in parliament of people whose interest is in the well-being of others. However, her optimism is guarded.
Italy, she says, has been like sleeping beauty. She hopes it can be awakened.

At a time when Italy's political and economic fragility is in the spotlight, 5 leading Italian figures deliver a letter about Italy today, the dangers and the future possibilities.

Five letters from leading Italians from the fields of politics, economics, television, art and journalism.
At a time when Italy is in the spotlight, both for the changing of the Pope but more especially for the recent election results and the economic fragility that has brought austerity and anger, each of the letter writer talks about their sense of Italy today, it's challenges, the dangers it faces and the possibilities for the future.


This week's contributors will be:

Prof Gustavo Piga is an economist at Rome University.

Lucia Annunziata is editor of the Huffington Post, Italy but spent many years in Italian television including a period as head of RIA, the Italian equivalent of the BBC.

Carlo Sibilia is a member of the new Five Stars Movement lead by Beppe Grillo, the new and surprising force in Italian politics.

Dacia Maraini is a novelist and playwright and an established figure in the Italian literary landscape.

Annalisa Piras is an Italian Journalist based in London.

Producer: Tom Alban.

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Leading Italian figures write about Italy today, the dangers and the possibilities

At a time when Italy's political and economic fragility is in the spotlight, five leading Italian figures deliver a letter about Italy today, the dangers and the future possibilities

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