First of all, of course, you have to write

Rome, August 2020

“First of all, of course, you have to write. After that you have to keep writing. Even when no one cares. Even when you have the impression that no one will care. Even when manuscripts pile up in drawers and you forget them, while continuing to write others.”

These lines are taken from the autobiographical story written by Agota Kristof in “The Illiterate”, a little book of just 50 pages, published in 2004, in which one of the most important writers of the twentieth century recounts her happy childhood in Hungary, then her escape and exile in Switzerland, through Austria, in 1956.

In a few pages she talks about her all-consuming passion for reading since she was a child, the difficult years in college in which she paid for her broken shoes by writing plays to perform at school. Then the escape, the annihilating experience of living a flat and hopeless life in the “desert” of integration in a different culture and, above all, with a different language to handle: French, which will become the language in which she will write all her books, but which she will never fully understand.

The beginning is perfect. I love incipits. Read and write them.

The first lines are always among the most important. Like the end.

“I read. It's like a disease. I read everything that comes to hand, before my eyes: newspapers, textbooks, posters, pieces of paper found on the street, cooking recipes, children's books. Everything in print.

I'm four years old. The war has just begun.”

Technically it is flawless. She begins by declaiming her enveloping passion for reading. We don't know when: it's in the present. Then, the next line, she says that she is four years old. Then we understand that the one who devours everything in reading is a little girl of just four years old.

In reality, this autobiographical story offers several food for thought.

I have already written about her previously, regarding her poems.

The part in which she talk about the sense of disorientation and alienation in Switzerland should be read by all those who still complain about immigration or, more simply, don't understand it.

Although she has found refuge and work, despite the people there, it always remains an open wound.

“Everyone in the factory treats us well. They smile at us, talk to us, but we don't understand anything.

This is where the desert begins. Social desert, cultural desert. The exaltation of the days of the revolution and the escape is replaced by the silence, the emptiness, the nostalgia of the days in which we had the impression of participating in something important, perhaps even historic, the melancholy of home, the lack of family and friends. friends.”

A few essential words that make it clear how those who abandon their country feel, due to wars, hunger, in search of work and a better life. Where the best life is often just a mere economic condition to which the human and emotional one does not correspond.

But I would like to return to the initial paragraph. The one about writing.

“First of all, of course, you have to write. After that you have to keep writing. Even when no one cares.”

I believe that this simple suggestion can apply to everything we are passionate about. Obviously, for writing but it is also valid for photography. How many times have we felt dull, emptied of meaning, as if what we do must necessarily receive applause or appreciation from others. Naturally, knowing that our work is liked is relevant, I for one would perhaps not take photographs if I knew that no one was looking at them, but here the controversy is deeper. It's regardless.

It's an impulse to never retreat. Not to sip your passion.

It seems almost obvious to say that you must, of course, write but it isn't. Because sometimes we have to force ourselves to do it.

If we then add to this laziness the disinterest, or worse the criticism, of others then it seems like the grave of our creativity.

Kristof is telling us that writing, photography, music, art in general is always a cure for ourselves.

It's a natural continuation of our life, just as eating or breathing can be.

Who cares whether we breathe or not if not ourselves?

For this reason I have always loved Araki. Because, for me, he represents, like Antoine D'Agata, the perfect example of total adherence between life and art: Araki photographs as if he were breathing. He doesn't do it for others. He is bulimic.

In Malaysia I bought a book by him entitled “Ai No Balcony”, from 2012, in which there are only photographs of his balcony, from every angle, climatic condition, empty or with his wife or cat. An absurd book.

What's the point of seeing dozens of images of a balcony?

None, perhaps. But little by little you think about it, you observe them, and it's as if you sense Araki's breathing. The beating of his heart – not in the romantic sense but merely physiological.

His finger on the shutter is like a pulse oximeter.

It's an invitation to follow our passions above all for our own pleasure before that of others.

We must not write, photograph, compose music, write songs, paint, following what fashions dictate, what others – even our closest friends – expect from us. Because where they don't like it or aren't interested we would be crushed by frustration.

Art is a cure. It is the most natural medicine there is.

It's like shamanic medicine that cures diseases through the use of speech and mystical chant. Because giving a name to what makes us feel bad is the first step towards healing, from the times of tribal healers to Freud.

And our written pages, the verses, the photos, are our words.

Through which, very often, we understand ourselves better.

They are Lacan's mirrors, recognitions, epiphanies.

Sometimes wounds, or nails, like the title of Agota Kristof's poems.

Maybe one of our poems, a story, an image will not be of interest to anyone, it will not be worthy of a glance, but it will have been our umpteenth breath, our private balcony on which to arrange what we like, lizards, cats, toy dinosaurs, dried flowers...

Writing produces writing.

Only by continuing to write can you sharpen your pen, just as only by shooting can you sharpen your eye.

Italian version