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 work Lessico famigliare (Family Sayings, 1963). In 1938, she married Leone Ginzburg. In 1940, he was exiled to a small town in Abruzzo. 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 inconvenient, but ultimately the happiest time of her life.

Between 1943 and 1944, the Ginzburgs were involved in various clandestine publishing activities. During 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 Einaudi publishing house. 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. Natalia Ginzburg was elected as a member of the Italian Parliament in 1983 and again in 1987 with the Independent Left, becoming a committed advocate for human rights and an opponent of racism.

That’s where I met her.

Writing these lines brought me an unexpected awareness: how someone who’s been gone for so many years can suddenly feel so close again. It’s 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 hasn’t faded or changed.

She’s the person who helped me understand how encounters between different generations, experiences, and historical moments can form a vital “bridge”—if we know how to use it—to learn how to live: to become aware, and even to hope. Life and history have their difficult times and aspects; but perhaps, as we go forward, we begin to grasp their meaning. It’s about trying to understand what’s happening around us, and finding the courage to take part. Not to stand outside or on the sidelines. An extremely attentive disorientation, one that stays entirely within the bounds of what it means to be human. This, all of it, is present in her writings.

Her language is marked by a tone of “humility”, which is reflected in 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). Her work often focused on “small things”, and “everyday life”, themes that also are explored in certain branches of sociology: another way in which I feel connected to her.

We feel we’ve truly met her characters, so intimately 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 when news of Fascism’s fall 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 the perspective of women. We meet little girls (such as Natalia in Lessico Famigliare), pregnant young women, elderly women (like “Mrs Maria”), and adult mothers with their children (Lucrezia in La città e la casa), those who are peasants and the bourgeois ones.

And the men—those at war, away for months or even years, known only 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 inventive approach—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 reflect everyday life and “small things”, which are, at the same time, part of complex and weighty historical realities. Her own life was marked by similar complexity and pain, starting with the tragic 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 (Rome). We were both newly elected parliamentarians with the Independent Left, both newcomers to that context. I’d taken a seat near a few colleagues 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 her MP1 badge, 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 was just as dear to me.

Her children, her grandchildren. On a couple of occasions, even Giulio Einaudi was there. He 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.

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: she had passed away.

I hold them within me—with gratitude and a deep sense of tenderness.
1 Member of the Parliament - Italian: Deputato, member of the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei deputati), the lower house of the bicameral parliamentary system of Italy.