Somewhere between mining and building palaces

Claudia Durastanti and Nadeesha Uyangoda are two of the most interesting voices of their generation. Their writing touches on themes of identity, class, race, and gender, without being reductive. The two women share, in different ways, a liminal identity, which defines their approach to cultural production.

And above all, they are friends. Their conversation in the charming setting of Mantova's Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara is much more than the first official launch for Durastanti’s latest book, Falsi amici (False Friends). It is a “conversation with friends”, a sharing of ideas which will remain with their audience long after the end of the event.

“Writing nonfiction is like working in a mine: you dig down, taking for granted you will find something valuable, precious. Writing fiction, instead, is more like working on scaffolding, without safety nets. You always risk falling down”.

Each writer has experienced both sides of the page: while Durastanti moved from fiction to nonfiction, Uyangoda took the opposite path, landing in fiction after two nonfiction works.

The conversation itself feels like an extraction: a deep dive into their work and the constant balancing between freedom and restraint which it entails.

Durastanti recalls the generational shift that occurred around the time she entered the cultural system: a group of new, young people who started writing saying ‘I’, setting aside the more generally accepted ‘we’. A “stylistic revolution” that at its core reflected new material conditions: saying ‘I’ was often more “economical”.

Neither author is afraid of casting a light on the difficulties of cultural work. It is often hard, in particular as young women – “working-class girls” in constant search of external validation – to speak freely.

And yet, Falsi amici is the “midway between mining and building palaces”. An act of liberation and reappropriation, the final step out of the cage. Eleven essays written just for the sake of writing, to answer some of her own burning questions.

It is normal to be afraid of falling from the scaffolding, but sometimes you have to build your own safety nets. For Durastanti and Uyangoda, that net is a “feminine polyphonic” voice: a shared multiplicity that makes individual expression all the stronger.