Discovery of the World

Luciana Castellina is one of Italy's most prominent left intellectuals and a cofounder of the newspaper Il Manifesto. In this coming-of-age memoir, based on her diaries, she recounts her political awakening as a teenage girl in Fascist Italy—where she used to play tennis with Mussolini's daughter—and the subsequent downfall of the regime. The book is about war, anti-Semitism, anti-fascism, resistance, hope in social justice, experiencing different contexts than one's own, traveling, political rallies, cinema, French intellectuals and FIAT workers, international diplomacy and friendship. All this is built on an intricate web made of reason and affection, of rational questioning and ironic self-narration as well as of profound nostalgia, disappointment and new discoveries.