Intervista a Simonetta Sanna

II. La letteratura come esercizio di umanità

Abstract

We present Part II of the interview with Professor Simonetta Sanna, which focuses on literature as a meaningful and fulfilling endeavor for understanding reality and penetrating the most hidden parts of ourselves. Sanna’s idea of literature offers tools to transcend all-good / all-bad dichotomy and pursue an ethics of alterity which interrogates the process of recognition of disavowed aspects we, as human beings, find unbearable and therefore do project on to the others. Sanna’s reading proposals also outline a politics of literature aimed at engaging with Hans Keilson’s novel The Death of the Adversary, which introduces unique reflections on Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit. The process of coming to terms with the German NS-past doesn’t stop echoing in contemporary writers, whose works Sanna explores in depth. Her research fields also allow us to share in the ability to portray that “civilisation of conversation” which characterised European literature in the 18th and 19th centuries and which today's social media society should be able to return to.