«E quasi incredula mi aprivo alla speranza». Percorsi di letteratura della disabilità

This volume is a first specific contribution on the links between literature and disability or disease, a theme that has always been present in Italian literature, much more consistently since the end of the 18th century. This theme has by now reached a relevant role in the editorial production between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 2nd millennium, production that is still waiting for deeper studies and that documents the social problems tied to uneasiness, disease or disablement situations, taking their appearance immediately. This publication has also didactic aims (it’s adopted in the course “Letteratura della disabilità e della marginalità”) and therefore it contains a wide anthological section, which hosts excerpts from Gabriele d’Annunzio and Luigi Pirandello, drawn respectively from Notturno and Enrico IV, accompanied by short comment notes. The anthological selection also includes passages from the novels Le libere donne di Magliano and Per le antiche scale by Mario Tobino and Paolo Teobaldi’s Il mio manicomio, all commented. The book moreover analyzes some reports from the volume titled Mi riguarda, published in 1994, that collects writings from different authors joined by being relatives of handicapped individuals: author’s attention is focused on passages from Giuseppe Pontiggia, Ennio De Concini, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Carla Gallo Barbisio and Clara Sereni. The last chapters and the pertinent commented anthological parts are dedicated to a couple of novels focused on two different types of physical disability: Giuseppe Pontiggia’s Nati due volte, whose protagonist, Paolo, is affected by spastic tetraparesis, and Gian Antonio Stella’s La bambina, il pugile e il canguro, who deals with the Down syndrome.