Dacia Maraini: “Talking about the camp in Japan in 1943 was a form of liberation”

How can you explain that this book is only being published now, more than eighty years after what you experienced ?

It took me a while to write it. I started it several years ago, but each time I stopped because it was painful to return to those experiences. Then, three years ago, this atmosphere of war that was taking hold prompted me to finish this book quickly. It is more important to give a testimony than to speak in generalities about war or opposition to it. Everyone is against war, but bearing witness to how a child can experience conflict and how they cope in a concentration camp is something else, a necessity. So I forced myself to finish this story. And, strangely, while I dreaded facing my own pain, I realized that it did me good, a bit in a Freudian way: instead of suffering more, I felt a kind of liberation in talking about the camp in Japan.

So the triggering event for this book is the return of war to Europe, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine ?

Yes, the war in Europe, but also the one in the Middle East, in Gaza, since October 7. A culture of hatred and aggression now reigns there. What drives Netanyahu is revenge. But the essence of civilization and democracy is to go beyond revenge and apply justice, not to rely on it.