Daniela Vasarri tells the impact of asbestos on daily life with an intense and documented novel. “The wind of memory” It is a history of work, shared silences and tragedies, which transforms the memory into a complaint and gives voice to those who breathed the dust without knowing they die
Who could imagine that just what we lived would have been what I would have died?
White dust, destinies marked: the novel-dice on the asbestos of Daniela Vasarri
Second volume of the series dedicated toWork environment, “The wind of memory”Daniela Vasarri’s new novel, has its roots in a solid historical research base. The author tells, in an incisive and aware narrative tone, the long and tormented evolution of the working environments related to the production of the Cement-asbestos.
Without indicating a precise geographical setting, Vasarri builds a human and social fresco. It stages hopes, dreams and fears of the first workers who find themselves, despite themselves, to face a silent and invisible enemy.
A daily life marked by forced coexistence with assassin fiber
“Everyone had now been used to it, they lived there, unaware of his dangerousness again”: With these words, the writer outlines a daily life marked by forced coexistence with assassin fiber. Asbestos, which for years has guaranteed sustenance to entire communities, slowly transforms into the executioner of those same lives.
From 1930 up to the early 2000s, the author follows the events of a family linked with a double wire with the factory. A family immersed in a toxic, contaminated reality, where life crumbles under the weight of an invisible threat.
The text tells of men, who soon wake up early, reach the departments and breathe dust that are deposited everywhere: in handkerchiefs, between hair, on work suits, even on underwear. They are not blue principles sprinkled with magical dust – writes Vasarri – but true, strong and vulnerable men, who transport, shape and cut objects impregnated with a substance that penetrates them from the inside.
“Take a magazine in hand -tells the text -,, It is among the few scientific that cover the glass of the table. The browse abstractly, but realizes that many articles have foreign words, British believes, but then the image of a lung strikes him. They are two figures similar to beans, pink in color, one of which is dirty with extensive spots that cover that rose: pleural mesothelioma -recites the title -, the tumor caused by asbestos “.
Asbestos, a hidden, thin and lethal poison
White dust, described as a dense snow, covers everything. Even happy moments, like a baptism, are cloaked in restlessness. Emma -a protagonist of the novel -, worried mother, observes the gardens of the church and fears that her family tramples on asbestos. The avenues, built with bags of industrial waste, become metaphor for apparent beauty that hides a thin and lethal poison.
We are in 1970. The word “asbestos” Start fear. The unions raise the problem and ask to limit their use or even stop their production. Requests reach Parliament, while the crisis spreads and leaves indelible signs.
The theme enters every house and in every body. Masseies wash the contaminated suits of husbands or children. The antennists work on roofs in asbestos ondulins. Cortili where children and soccer fields play are covered with carcinogenic material. The workers handle with bare hands tubes, irons and slabs, unaware of the poison they breathe.
“… I don’t know how to tell you, this morning I was a little frightened at work because, after a sense of strong nausea, an incredible swept, I started tossing; but you don’t know, as you usually get counted, everything hurt, the stomach, behind, even the belly. I would not like to do the job, you understand me, in short …”.
That source of income that, while it nourishes them, slowly devours them
The dust does not distinguish. It wraps everyone: who touches it, those who breathe it, who simply pass by. Nobody is excluded. The entire community is united by a tragic fate. Still, everyone remains clinging to that source of income that, while nourishing them, slowly devours them.
Vasarri’s narration affects the heart when it tells that not only the workers die. Even those who have never set foot in the factory get away. Children, women, teachers, artisans: victims unaware of a fiber that insinuates itself everywhere and does not forgive.
With a direct and engaging style, the author composes a novel-dice that gives voice to silent generations. He tells an industrial Italy seduced by progress, but betrayed by his own blind trust.
A story that has the flavor of collective memory and the weight of denied justice.
“… the wind of memory is powerful and manages to last forever”.
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