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Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing (CCWW)

Rossana Campo

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Rossana Campo (photo courtesy of the author)

Born in 1963 in Genoa into a Neapolitan family, Rossana Campo is a prolific novelist and painter, the author of numerous novels, a radio drama, and several children’s books. Her literary formation, under the neo-avant-garde poet Edoardo Sanguineti, led her to develop an experimental style that has been linked to that of her dissertation supervisor. It was Gianni Celati who noted the similarities between Campo and Sanguineti in his introduction to her short story ‘La storia della Gabri’, published in the anthology Narratori delle riserve in 1992. The 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in what have since come to be known as the Americas marked Campo’s literary debut with a novel, In principio erano le mutande, set in the historic centre of Genoa. The multicultural environment of the city’s underbelly, with its grunge and picaresque atmosphere, reflects the uncensored theme of her narrative, which, as the title indicates, begins with underwear (mutande). The garment that restrains human sexuality and scatology is, in fact, a titillating reference to the protagonist’s sexual initiation. It is in that territory where the sun never shines, be it the ‘vicoli’ of the Ligurian capital or the most intimate of garments, that Campo sets her first narrative.

The success of In principio erano le mutande prompted Italian director Anna Negri to turn the book into a movie with the same title in 1999, a decision that demonstrates that the novel was not only a best-seller but also a long-seller. After it reached a wide audience, Campo became a controversial literary figure, praised and criticized for her stylistic choices, especially her linguistic and thematic innovations, which mimic contemporary urban idioms and situations. Considered ‘one of Italy’s most iconoclastic, “resisting” writers’ (Ferme, 2006) owing to her stylistic and linguistic choices ‒ which include an over-reliance on colloquialisms, jargon, and debased juvenile language ‒ Campo’s language shares many similarities with the language of the ‘giovani cannibali’. Like many of the young writers who came of age in the early 1990s, she displays a ‘brash and provocative narrative’ (Lucamante, ‘Introduction’, 2001) that centers on female sexuality.

Her own experience as the daughter of southern immigrants living in a northern town filter into her second novel, Il pieno di super (1993), in which the image of the sexual act (to which the title makes sly allusion) guides a narrative that revolves around a group of girls approaching puberty while facing discrimination as ‘meridionali’ [southern]. Frequent dialogue and lack of punctuation create the mimetic effect of eavesdropping on the conversations of a group of female friends at various stages of their lives, young adolescents voicing their sexual curiosity or women discussing their disastrous love relationships, as in the case of her third novel. Mai sentita così bene (1995; Never Felt So Good, 2020) showcases a plurality of female voices centred on sexual escapades against the background of a rainy Paris. Whether set in that city or in her native Genoa, Campo’s novels turn to humour as a weapon to help women combat their own victimization.

Expanding her narrative geography with settings in both Paris and New York, L’attore americano (1997) is the most cinematographic of Campo’s novels. Like the previous ones, it allows us to view life through the eyes of a female first-person narrator, in this case a woman who makes us privy to her catastrophic love story with an American actor whom she chases in the Big Apple.

Lesbianism, a theme present in many of her works since In principio, acquires major relevance in her radio drama Il matrimonio di Maria, aired on Radio 3 in 1997 (published in 1998), and in her detective novel Mentre la mia bella dorme (1999). Probably the most innovative in theme, Mentre la mia bella dorme tells the story of a pregnant journalist who investigates the mysterious death of her neighbour and occasional partner during a hot Parisian summer.

As Campo’s protagonists grow up, female solidarity as well as rivalry continue to appear in her novels, which often acquire darker tones. The shattering consequences of love are still at the centre of her narrative, as the titles of her subsequent books indicate: Sono pazza di te (2001), L’uomo che non ho sposato (2003), and Duro come l’amore (2005) all centre on love and eroticism. To confirm the relational aspect of woman’s condition, Campo returns obsessively to the effects of sexual traumas, as in her novel Lezioni di arabo (2010).

A prolific writer, Campo has combined her literary career with a keen interest in the visual arts, revealing her imagination not only in written form but also in a variety of drawings and paintings. Women, little girls, and animals find colourful expression in her artwork, which has been exhibited at the Pintapiuma Gallery in Genoa in 2002 and, in 2003, at the Baruchello Foundation in Rome entitled Bambine chiuse, ragazze chiatte, mamme bisbetiche. Questa volta la storia la raccontiamo noi. In 2012 Genoese publisher Il Canneto brought out a complete catalogue of her artwork called L’arte soppianta tutti gli enzimi: Opere 2000-2011. In her art and in her children’s books, Campo treats her young female protagonists to a world unhindered by the rules of adult logic.

As she remarked in an interview following publication of her collection of short stories Difficoltà per le ragazze (2016), gender issues have played a key role in Campo’s works: ‘Io ho sempre desiderato scrivere anche per raccontare le donne come le vedo io, per raccontare di me e delle donne che conosco’ (Maugeri, 2016). Although political themes such as multiculturalism, racism, and migration are crucial to her oeuvre, many of her novels revolve primarily around the ways in which women challenge gender norms and heteropatriarchy. In them, the erotic as well as the interpersonal aspects of her protagonists’ existence are detailed, because as Campo has indicated, ‘A me interessa seguire le mie eroine anche in camera da letto, mi piace sentire cosa provano quando fanno l’amore, quando si lasciano andare o hanno un orgasmo’ (García Valdés, 2015). The physical as well as psychological aspects of women’s lived experiences are expressed in a vivid language that never ceases to express the resilience of her protagonists. Love and its discontents are key thematic issues, explored through a plurality of characters in a postmodern, feminist, and post-feminist fashion in a multiplicity of plots that draw attention to the pervasiveness of gender-based violence.

While most of her works are fictional, the therapeutic aspect of autobiographical writing is explored in two of her most recent books: Dove troverete un altro padre come il mio (2015) and Scrivere è amare di nuovo: l’autobiografia come rinascita (2020). In the former, a memoir, the loss of her father prompts a process of self-analysis that leads her to revisit her complex and often conflicting relationship with a man who defied social norms while failing to find a place in society. Although she struggled to understand her father, she acknowledges his long-lasting influence on her life. In 2016, the book was awarded the Premio Strega Giovani and the Premio Elsa Morante. In Scrivere è amare di nuovo, Campo invites her readers to engage in practical writing exercises by entering into dialogue with Adriana Cavarero’s theories of self-narration.

Her latest novel, Così allegre senza nessun motivo (2019), revisits one of Campo’s most beloved themes, female friendship, through a heterogenous group of women who live and work in Paris, Campo’s once-adoptive city. Festive dinner parties showcase the world of strong, nonconformist women, zealous to discuss literature and life. From the vantage point that postmenopausal bodies afford, the protagonists use humour and creativity (as the title indicates) to face middle life and its challenges. While Campo’s writing style is no longer as provocative and iconoclastic as in her previous work, it continues to explore women’s agency with great sensitivity.

Compiled by Marina Bettaglio (Victoria, Canada)