With a Faber Number Two Pencil

Alki Zei narrates the story of her youth, which shaped her future path. A whole era revives in her exciting narrative, animated by the presence of famous personalities of the arts and literature. Her biographical narrative also reveals remarkable examples of human behaviour in a completely unpretentious manner.

“I needed good memory and much love in order to write the story of my life. In a novel you can say whatever you imagine, you can move your heroes as you like, you can make them say whatever you think. But when the characters are real you are not allowed to make the smallest mistake, especially when there is nobody anymore there to agree or contradict you. Fortunately, I have my sister, whose memory is infallible and her life is entangled with mine. As soon as she read my book she said: ‘That’s how we lived, that’s how those we met and loved were’. And I asked her: ‘Now that you recalled our story, would you have preferred to have lived another life?’ ‘Absolutely not!’ she replied spontaneously. ‘Absolutely not!’ I also added.”