Natalia Ginzburg’s life was shaped by difficult historical events and deep personal tragedies. She grew up in Turin in an intellectual and anti-fascist context, constantly under police surveillance, and with several family members—including her father and some of her brothers—being imprisoned. These years would later be vividly summarised in her novel Lessico famigliare (Family Sayings, 1963). In 1938, she married Leone Ginzburg, who was exiled to a small town in Abruzzo two years later. Natalia and their three children (Carlo, Andrea, Alessandra) joined him there and stayed until 1943. She would recall this period in a piece from Le piccole virtù (The Little Virtues, 1962), describing it as initially uncomfortable, but ultimately the happiest time of her life.

Between 1943 and 1944, the Ginzburgs were involved in various clandestine publishing activities. After their return to Rome, Leone was arrested and died under torture in prison, never seeing his wife and three children again.

After the war, Natalia returned to Turin and began collaborating with the publishing house Einaudi. In the following decades, her literary career flourished, spanning translations, novels, essays and plays. In 1950, she married Gabriele Baldini, who passed away in 1969. She would be also elected as a member of the Italian Parliament in 1983 and again in 1987 with Sinistra Indipendente (Independent Left), becoming a committed advocate for human rights and against racism.

That’s where I met her.

Writing these lines has made me realise something unexpected: how someone who has been gone for many years can suddenly feel very close again. It is a deep emotion I had never experienced before.

In my memory, Natalia is truly herself: warm with those around her, deeply aware of the human and political challenges in our world. She was reserved and discreet, often silent, yet always perceptive. Her presence has not faded, nor warped.

She is the one who helped me understand how encounters with generations, experiences, and historical moments different from our own can form a vital “bridge”—if we know how to use it—that will, in a way, teach us how to live: becoming aware, even hopeful. Life and history have their difficult times and aspects; but perhaps, as we go forward, we might end up grasping their meaning. It is about trying to understand what is happening around us, and finding the courage to do our part. Rather than standing outside, or on the sidelines. An extremely attentive disorientation, entirely within the bounds of being human. This, all of it, is present in her writings.

Her language is “humble”, starting from the titles of her novels the titles of her novels, such as Le voci della sera (Voices in the Evening, 1961), Lessico Famigliare (Family Sayings, 1963), Ti ho sposato per allegria (I Married You for Fun, 1966), and La città e la casa (The City and the House, 1984). Within them, we find “small things”, and “everyday life”, the same terms are used by certain branches of sociology: another way in which I feel connected to her.

Reading her work, we feel as if we had actually met her characters, so closely are they portrayed through simple gestures, words, and even what remains unsaid. They live through the years of Fascism, the racial laws against Jews, Mussolini and the Rome-Berlin Axis, and the war. I clearly remember a scene from Tutti i nostri ieri (All Our Yesterdays, 1952): the moment in which news of the fall of the Fascism regime spreads, people talk about the armistice, and there’s hope that it might all be over. But then the Germans arrive, while “the English never come”.

Many of her books are narrated through a woman’s eyes. We witness the life of little girls (Natalia in Lessico Famigliare), pregnant girls, elderly women (“signora Maria”), and adult mothers with their children (Lucrezia in La città e la casa), from peasants to bourgeois women.

And the men—those at war, away for months or even years, those only known as being “in Russia”. Cenzo Rena and Franz, who surrendered to the Germans to save the lives of ten innocent hostages, and then are executed. These are the final pages of Tutti i nostri ieri.

I’ve always admired the invention—particularly in the last work I mentioned—of bringing together the letters of people, family members, and friends who keep in touch or find each other again, revealing change, suffering, and the passing of time. The tone and language are those of everyday life, of the “small things”, which, at the same time, are part of complex and weighty historical events. Her own life experiences were similarly complex and painful, starting with the terrible death of her first husband, Leone Ginzburg, who was tortured and killed in prison in 1944. She never talked about this.

We first met during a crowded meeting in one of the rooms at Montecitorio Palace. We were both newly elected deputies with the Independent Left, both newcomers to that context. I had taken a seat near some of our “group” when she walked in, looking slightly uncertain in the crowd and the unfamiliar setting. I went over and invited her to sit with us. From that moment on, she called me her “guardian angel” during those early days in Parliament—especially when it came to the more bureaucratic tasks, like getting the badge identifying her as a member of parliament, finding her mailbox among hundreds, figuring out which elevator led to the upper floors. That’s how things were back then; though I imagine much has changed in the Palace since.

We spent a great deal of time together: long parliamentary sessions, all kinds of meetings, and conferences. In 1989, along with others, we co-founded the association Italia/Razzismo (Italy/Racism). There were also more informal moments: at her home in Rome, a holiday in Sperlonga, and even—somehow—one summer in the Aosta Valley with Vittorio Foa. I want to remember him too, as he meant just as much to me.

Her children, her grandchildren. On a couple of occasions, even Giulio Einaudi who didn’t seem particularly pleased by my presence—I clearly didn’t fit into their world. In fact, I don’t recall us ever discussing her novels or literature at all. Maybe I should have asked.

Some of her words have stayed with me: brief sentences, some from her books, others from moments we shared. Especially the ones from the last time we saw each other. As always, we talked about everyday things. The next day, I got a call and learned she was gone.

I carry them within me—with gratitude and a deep sense of tenderness.

Translated by Rebecca Cigognini.