An extraordinary debut, the story of a woman who fights through life like a gladiator in post-WWII
Rome. It’s 1943—families are crowded and hungry. Tullia and her brothers are raised as slaves by their violent, furiously unhappy mother. Every evening she counts the money they were able to raise from the streets, and if it’s not enough, she beats them.
Tullia is forced to grow up pretty fast, to work with her head down. But the way she sees the world is brave, curious, full of life. Her desperate will to survive, to make something different out of the misery of her life, is so powerful it’s impossible not to remain in awe of her strength, her dignity, and her relentless resilience.
She leaves behind her abusive mother, but her majestic figure, her beauty, her clear intelligence, torment her as she becomes a woman and a mother, without ever learning how to be a daughter. She is lonely, but she’s not alone: fascinating, dirty, loud, hopeful, eternal Rome is a mother and a friend to Tullia who grows in its warm yet unforgiving embrace.
Laura Mancini’s writing is transparent and imaginative, atmospheric. Reading Niente per lei is like watching history go by outside a window: it’s impossible not to see in it a blurred reflection of ourselves.