Her father always told her that she was Italian but she felt a sense of estrangement that she could not define and decided to go and dig into her origins. From this journey backwards was born the story The Secret Stranger, winner of the 2021 Conorso Lingua Madre (Mother Tongue Competition). Natalia Marraffini was in Turin on June 17th to participate in the workshop on diversity and literature organized by NRW. Writer, youtuber and teacher in high school, the Italian-Argentine author has a keen eye for the world of adolescence and it’s many forms of identity investigation. An attention that extends to the universe of young people in general, perpetually poised between boundaries and fragility. These are the main themes she addresses in her book Off-line, published at the end of 2020, and in the podcast Confessions of a Millennial.
An Italian Argentine story like many others
Natalia Marraffini retraces with NRW the history of her family that unites her with many other stories of migration between Argentina and Italy of the last century. «I was born in Vimercate in 1991 and I live in the province of Lecco but my father was born and raised in Argentina». Then he jokes about him, saying that his friends say he speaks like Pope Francis. “My grandparents, who had Abruzzo and Neapolitan heritage, decided to move to Italy to seek greater stability. My father wanted to go with them, together with my mother who, in the meantime, he had met in Argentina.”
The first book by Natalia Marraffini, born during the pandemic
When she published her first book, Off-line, at the end of 2020, the world was at the mercy of the health emergency. It is a narrative in an experimental and hybrid form that addresses three themes: the lockdown, which is the background, the fluid society of young people in balance between offline and online and an autobiographical element that refers to the need to cope with the traumas that resurface from the past.
In Off-line, I explored autobiographical experiences mainly concerning job insecurity, school and distance learning. Let’s say that I wrote this book as an “Italian” in the sense that, only once the writing was finished, I then felt that I had to start a path of identity construction starting from my Argentine heritage
The failure of the school in a fluid society
With the winning story of the Concorso Lingua Madre, La straniera segreta, Natalia Marraffini has finally recomposed the various pieces related to her origins, reaching the awareness of her personal history. “My foreign roots have had a strong influence on the construction of my identity,” explains the author.
Unfortunately, our society does not contribute much in this regard. The new generations cannot rely on the formative role of the school, for example, which is totally failing them. As a teacher, I don’t see any initiative from the school as an institution. There is only the enthusiasm of individuals, while the school system shuts its eyes and does not want to deal with the problems
Marraffini emphasizes not only inclusivity and immigration but in general an understanding of the critical issues of young people. “I see a barrier on the part of colleagues, an entrenchment of stereotypes and devaluation of the new generations.”
What does a millennial confess?
The podcast Confessions of a Millennial debuted in 2021 with a pilot episode, followed by other episodes during 2022, available on Spotify. The idea was to talk about the millennial generation without the use of clichés and from a female point of view. For example, classic situations such as the experience of the first internship, but also of taboos related to sexuality and relationships. “In the future I would like this podcast to become a collection or a novel,” explains Marraffini, confirming that for her multimedia is her bread and butter. “I have a YouTube channel and I’m very active on social media. But I admit that I have some anxiety about the podcast compared to the camera. The voice is much more intimate and requires greater precision while on video you can always remedy it with a gesture or a facial expression».
Natalia Marraffini at the workshop in Turin
What about aspiring writers who participated in the workshop “Diversity leadership in literature” on June 17th? “I hope I conveyed the concepts that I dealt with in The Secret Stranger” notes the Italian-Argentine author speaking her book and then about the podcast Confessions of a millennial. “I have seen that by having both Italian and of foreign origin students listen to it, the common denominator is hope. Everyone is admired by the growth path that emerges from those pages. What I hoped to convey is confidence in the alternatives to school. Even if the school closes its doors to you, there are many others, however, that can be opened.”
Translated by Adam Clark.
