Without my mother’s ambition, her drive, I doubt that on my own I would have pushed myself out of Pozzuoli and into the frightening world that was faraway Rome.
I was so skinny, they gave me the nickname stechetto – the stick. I was tall, thin, ugly and dark like an Arab girl. I looked strange. All eyes. No flesh on my bones.
If you don’t have the roots somewhere, it’s very difficult for people to work with you. Because you are a different person from them. They don’t know you, really. They don’t know how you feel.
