Tireless seeker of the essence
The great writer Colum McCann was a guest speaker at this year's Meeting. Stories like those of Israeli Rami and Palestinian Bassam “help us tell the story of light even in the darkness of contradictions."Meeting Colum McCann in person and spending time with him was a great blessing. You rarely get such opportunities with the authors of those books that totally capture you and become something more than just an interesting or enjoyable read. Admit it: how many times have you also dreamed to talking to Primo Levi, Alessandro Manzoni, Charles Péguy, Thomas Stern Eliot or even just with Alexandre Dumas…not to mention Dante and Virgil. The first thing about McCann that I have taken home from the days of the Rimini Meeting is that the strange title he gave to his book about two fathers, the Israeli Rami and the Palestinian Bassam who became friends by sharing the grief of their murdered daughters, relates precisely to his worldview and history: Apeirogon. Indeed, that strange word means “polygon with an infinite number of sides.” Now, Colum does not like to talk about literature, writers, publishing. He loves reality, he is interested in reality, in an almost ravenous, totalizing, varied and different way. His encounter with the Meeting was a “clash,” an almost traumatic encounter with all the stories, realities, circumstances he encountered: from the exhibitions to the volunteers. Realities that are emergencies, manifestations, epiphanies of the human. “Apeirogonally,” as he often wrote to his fans in his dedications during the book signing in Rimini. For him, life has many sides all to embrace, many facets. His thirst for the human and for stories, good and bad, pain or happiness, death or resurrection, haunts him, never leaving him in peace. Colum is Irish, raised Catholic, and is now a New Yorker and an American. He married Allison, the niece of Antonio Ferri, an Italian engineer from Norcia, with an incredible story. Today she teaches English to foreigners in Manhattan.
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I wondered where Colum's gaze towards reality comes from, whose plural expression of the humanity he loves so much. A sympathetic and compassionate gaze that is never dismissive, never scornful toward the women and men he comes across. McCann often repeats: we may not be able to love, to forgive, but let us at least try to understand. Understand. He said to me, “We do not even have to like each other, although we hope we can. But we need to understand each other. Because if we do not understand each other we are in big trouble.” So I asked him: “Does this attitude not come from your Irish history, from your Catholic tradition?” He replied: “Honestly I do not know.” The question remains a question, but it too is a period, an awareness.
The third idea that Colum McCann shared with me is that writing can be restorative. He is a writer who has realized that he can do good by writing. By writing and educating to write, teaching “compassion,” as he openly states. That is why his mission today is Narrative 4, a non-profit already present in several countries (but not yet in Italy) that gathers students with stories to tell, giving them a voice. “Narrative 4 offers educators creative tools to teach compassion and develop leaders among students in the classroom and in the community,” to create ”a global network of change-makers.” “Stories,” he said in front of thousands in the meeting where he was a guest speaker at the Meeting, ”help us tell the light even in the darkness of contradictions. In Gaza, in Israel, all over the world. We need to go beyond the box and look for women and men on all sides, in all facets.” A tireless seeker of the essence, at the right Meeting for him.
