Testimony by Claudiléia Lemes Dias

Recorded in Rome, in December 2023
 

Summary
Her arrival in Italy to pursue juridical studies, her relationship with writing and her desire to start practising it in order to denounce stereotypes and injustice. Claudileia Lemes Dias shares considerations on her relationship with Italian and Portuguese, on her initial desire to write exclusively in Italian but then, in recent times, to return to her mother tongue. The author also reflects on the category of "migrant writing", whose limitations she denounces, and affirms her idea of a universal literature, free of editorial demands. Finally, she discusses her commitment to civil rights for the LGBTQIA+ community, in Brazil and in Italy.
 

Keywords
Writing; migrant writing; universal literature; mother tongue; LGBTQIA+ rights; Storie di extracomunitaria follia; L'arte di salvarsi la vita; domestic violence; Fascismo tropicale; Anatomia del maschio invisibile; Nessun requiem per mia madre; Le catene del Brasile

Presentation of Claudiléia Lemes Dias 

Claudiléia Lemes Dias was born in Rio Brilhante, Brazil, in 1979. She graduated in Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná and holds two Master's Degree: one in Family Mediation from the Centro Europeo di Mediazione Familiare and one in International Protection of Human Rights from La Sapienza University of Rome. In 2008, she won the First Prize in the National Literary Competition “Lingua Madre” with the short story FPS 25. The following year she published her first collection of short stories Storie di extracomunitaria follia. She wrote the novels Nessun requiem per mia madre (Fazi Editore, 2012) and Anatomia del maschio invisibile (L'Erudita/Giulio Perrone, 2016) as well as the essays Fascismo tropicale: il Brasile tra l'estrema destra e il Covid-19 (2020, Ed. Dissensi) and Le catene del Brasile, un paese ostaggio delle religioni (2022, L'Asino d'oro Ed.). Her self-help blog for victims of psychological violence “L'arte di salvarsi” has over 13 million views. She collaborates with Left magazine.

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© 2023 – La Sapienza. All rights reserved. Author of the testimony Elena Ritondale.