INTERVIEW OF MARIA TERESA LIUZZO BY THE ALGERIAN JOURNALIST TURKIA LOUCIF

(Maria Teresa Liuzzo)

(Turkia Loucif)

Q. 1) Please tell us about yourself. 

A. 1) I was born in Calabria, the Italian region that was once called "Italy First," and later gave its name to Italy, along with Rome, "Caput Mundi"—the cradle of civilization for the world. While my peers played with dolls, trains, and toy soldiers, I was busy reading and writing. I also loved drawing and painting. I had the opportunity to frequent the "Noblesse Oblige" and meet the cream of Central European culture: internationally renowned artists, actors, opera singers, and directors. Actors like Lee Van Cliff, directors like De Sica, Fellini, and Rossellini, and opera singers like Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Mario Del Monaco, and many others.

Q. 2) Please tell us your beginning with writing.

A. 2) At about six years old, I began writing poems and short stories, but my secret dream was to one day write a novel. The dream came true, and in 2019, my first novel, "...And Now I'm Speaking!", was published. It was immediately translated into English by Giulia Calfapietro and then by Sara Russell, daughter of Irishman Peter Russell (several times nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature) and cousin of the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell. Peter Russell himself took an interest in my writing, calling me—at the presentation of my book "Apeiron"—"a poetic and prophetic voice." The book had a preface by Professor Romeo Magherescu of the University of Craiova. Professor Peter Russell subsequently edited the preface to my book "Humanity" and translated "Genesis" into English with parallel texts, with an introduction by scholar Mauro D'Castelli. Since my first publication, I have enjoyed considerable visibility in national newspapers, such as "America Oggi," "Il Ponte Italo-Americano," "Il Sole 24 Ore," and hundreds of international literary magazines. I have admired Arab writers since I was a child and have been in contact with many of them. A few years ago, I gave an interview to the renowned Egyptian journalist Hamdy Elmelegi, which was also broadcast on the most important Egyptian channel in the Middle East and published in Italian and foreign newspapers. Among the many names I remember is Mohamed Akalay, who translated many of my poems and was a contributor to the international culture magazine Le Muse, of which I am the Editor and Managing Director. Among the prestigious authors is Professor Hassan Ezzat, who has translated and presented Egyptian poets and my poetry at the University for Foreigners in Reggio Calabria, masterfully translating them. One of my books, "Danza a ritmo di rime," was presented in Morocco and translated by Professor Non Eddine Mansouri, and was published by the Moroccan University under the editorship of Mohamed Ellaghafi. It was later presented on television on Morocco's first television channel.

Q. 3) Have you ever participated in any competitions? Feelings and passions?

A. 3) Reading was and still is my greatest passion. It was like discovering the other side of the world, and perhaps ever since then, even though the times were different, I wondered if our society would ever emerge from its reckless spiritual and civil adolescence. Nor would I have thought that years later we would "find" child exploitation when we went to the moon, leaving behind a cemetery of the buried alive, living skeletons, and wounds on Earth. To find, in a civilized and modern world, the existence of Waste Pickers (creatures invisible to the eyes of the world). We find ourselves in Kenya among the walking dead, eating and breathing the chronic and deadly toxicity of landfills that are open-air mountains, all for pennies, rummaging for hours in that deadly cemetery of rubble in search of pieces of plastic to recycle, while elsewhere the shameful and ignoble supporters of genocide celebrate. From a young age, I had a keen sense of justice and truth: the two cornerstones that hold the world together. Today, my country's cultural history is not what it once was, rich in values, love, and passion. Creative minds and great writers are in short supply (an anomaly that doesn't just affect Italy); it's a loss of values that affects all nations. It's well known that weak minds often become confused because their only interest is to show off. Rare are the writers and poets who resist toxic relationships and the intrigues of lowlifes, who, for the sake of appearances and aware of their own mediocrity, lose everything by becoming slaves to their tormentors. Although generous, intelligent, and affectionate, I was also reserved, rigorous, and ruthless in defending the values of life and justice: the two faces of truth that cannot and must not be imbued with slander by mercenaries wearing the mask of ambiguity. I don't believe in competitions; you can't judge a poet by a single poem, but by their entire oeuvre. I've won first place in competitions I'd never entered, and I've never even collected a prize, not even a cash one. CULTURE is knowledge, it's quality, not quantity; it's not a game where the important thing is to participate, to enrich oneself through exchanges of opinions; it has become an unfair and pointless competition. The fanatics of the moment pretend to be interested in the authors, most of whom are deluded and naive; both parade across the stage like mannequins seeking a printed "certificate" that will make them "shine" like a broken glass; they don't perceive the real dangers, including hunger, the worst ancestral enemy, and then there's war with its scourges. Superficial and selfish people who don't think about the great problems, difficult, if not impossible to solve, that grip the world. They don't hear the cries of children, nor do they see death in their eyes, which are larger than their faces. No one wants to accept the truth for what it is: masters, vassals, abuse, and lies. They use others to exercise their power, to gain visibility that passes for generosity but is only self-interest. It makes no sense to appear without being, to use artificial intelligence to make translations that sign in their name without even bothering to read, leaving errors and horrors like chemtrails in space. Yet the recklessness and evil they live and operate in makes them happy; they seem to have emerged from a hellish gathering, ridiculing anyone who comes within range.

Q. 4) Please tell us the values of literature and the commitment on an intellectual and human level.

A. 4) They ignore that only a poet can translate another poet; the better the poet, the higher the yield. No one pays attention to these things; they applaud without reading. Today, the more you look, the less you see. There is no honest competition. When you can't outdo others, you throw poison, you invent lies, the executioner becomes the victim, but truth is the daughter of pride and manages to survive and fight in a web of dwarves and gossips. In what is evident to everyone, merit no longer exists; words are stones thrown into the "State" of justice. There are pseudo-publishers who until a few years ago were cleaning stables, and "imaginary" maniacs who recycle fake talents, but a true literary figure has no need of "business procurers" because he or she is capable of understanding the values of literature. Instead, they employ inexperienced, opportunistic, and violent people who not only plagiarize and "steal" the work of others, passing it off as their own, but also relentlessly cast a bad light on those they can never surpass. This sinister behavior has nothing to do with culture. Social media is like weapons that should only serve for self-defense, but those who possess them have no other purpose than to kill. We often encounter this network of dwarves, servants, and informers, consolidated servants of multiple masters. They wear a thousand masks, but they don't love peace, they have no respect for children, nor for hunger, nor for death. They possess only demonic eyes. While the world burns and children starve, we can no longer reconcile science and spirituality, which allowed us to "see" beyond our own gaze, revealing the blindness of times gone by. It is well known that when faced with an inconvenient figure, engaged on an intellectual and human level, and as such "non-recyclable," "diversity" (the hyper-connected process) seeks to erase the subject's name and activity with a clean slate—because today's culture, or almost everything, is founded on the "ontology of lies." The professors are jesters or phantom scholars who often haven't even published a book. Added to this delusion of omnipotence is climate chaos, cultural disintegration, digital floods, all devoid of balance and direction. Humanity is unscrupulous, predators who sink their claws before the "egg" hatches. The "sun" of consciousness has faded, tainting the metamorphosis of knowledge. Today we have sunk into an unparalleled cultural delirium. We have given way to the demons of ignorance and oblivion. But Dante, Leopardi, Manzoni, Verdi, Puccini, Michelangelo, the Colosseum, and the soon-to-be-built "Bridge over the Straits of Messina," which will connect Calabria with the entire world, will never die. We must prevent our planet from becoming increasingly impoverished, and let us not exaggerate by remembering that Christ was ultimately alone on the Cross. Music and Poetry are the great beauty of humanity, the only absences from which we can draw the fuel to spread the Science of the Spirit. Society is divided in two. One side loves beauty and interiority, the other is now ensnared by the emptiness of consumerism. The same goes for Philosophy, which seeks to move in the Socratic manner, concretely. Many of us are celebrating the funeral; who cares about educating themselves to ignite the Logos? They rush like madmen to New Age courses, peppered with a thousand practices, except to awaken the Logos. They try like tightrope walkers to achieve their goals with their super-ally technology. - But what are we surprised about? All the zeros need crutches to "appear" not to be someone. Let them continue watering the asphalt, while roses bloom from the tears that flow down the chest.

Q. 5) Have you ever participated in book fairs?

A. 5) The "sun" of consciousness has faded, tainting knowledge. What can I say? For me, writing is life. Wherever clones of modern intellectual laziness dawn, true creativity is frightening where creation remains the fixed point, as "Divine necessity and not chance." It contrasts with evil, which does not need to shed its skin to be warned. It imposes atrocities and turns itself into a victim, accusing others of "bloody" slander using cunning and effective methods, feeling righteous, even bullying an innocent, a "differently abled." What Orwell described in 1984 is happening today, before our eyes. Fate awaits in horror, while the monster's horrifying dreams die. Words are broken on the lips, shadows loom large, the future wears darkness. The wise king does not call buffoons to his court. He knows that the shameful sign of impotence must be avoided like its enemies. So it is with the process of an aesthetic experience when one is drawn to an enchanting starry sky, and poetry captures and seduces with its naturalness and characteristic vitality. The soul sings in its relationship with the absolute, transforming our body and mind into a temple. Gazes are freed from chains, tears extinguish the fire of pain, ribs burst open like windows, where the hell of bones has long gravitated. If we don't interrogate our own consciences and right the wrongs we've done, we risk living in a world of puppets, of psychopaths and violent people, devoid of the wisdom that guides the awakening of the consciousness of a physical body. They have forgotten universal values, human relationships, their function within ourselves, between wanting, feeling, thinking. They continue to ignore the profound diversity within unity, so their conscience never awakens, never grows, never develops, never evolves. My books have been adopted in schools of all levels in my city and province. I have never participated in book fairs, which I believe are more of interest to the publisher than the author, as people read little and don't buy because they know they will never open the "unfortunate book-object," waiting for some kind soul to lovingly and attentively carry it to the shelf or study of their home. It is destined to remain as merchandise on display. I consider books part of my soul and I protect them as if they were creatures, my children; I don't like to display them as merchandise. Reading means being in company, confiding as one does with a human being, because in the ink there is life, and the tragedy of time and space, both of the writer and the poet. People ignore the relationship between spirit and matter; they are zombies in a universe of dust. There is so much moral misery! There are no voices reciting in great theaters, but "voices screaming in the wilderness." Even in Italy, our poets are being killed, because silence kills more than the sword, threatening to erase eight hundred years of history. Cultural globalization has almost won, not by reciting but by imitating. But I am certain that those of us who love great poetry, like me, will recover our cultural identity with a surge of pride and rediscover the memory of the precious poetry that the whole world envies us, of our wonderful Italy, with Rome "Caput Mundi." We will not allow it to hibernate or be dragged into a tormented silence. The world gets worse as it ages, and social media is nothing more than a mad centrifuge that drags us from one place to another, like a wild beast before devouring its prey. But like any epochal change, it will not be destined to last forever. It is clear that the social, political, and cultural degradation of many unfortunate poets advances like a typhoon. And nothing makes a country more unworthy than its cultural decline.

Q. 6) What do books mean to you? Are there any we can discuss?

A. 6) Those who survive certain events do not conclude but begin. Some books are a constant stimulus through their richness of voices, landscapes, history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and psychiatry. Human suffering serves to strengthen and stimulate our ideological beliefs, but also to understand life from its most absurd and inhuman perspective. In these pages, we encounter the eternal sacrifice of those who love, who manage to weave with threads of light the paths of darkness that obscure unions and humanitarian connections. At the heart of my books is the human and the divine. It is a process of death and resurrection that has lasted for millennia. Everything ends and begins again, otherwise the very sight on earth would be extinguished, like a dropped bomb that, in falling, would be capable of obliterating an entire city. Vulgarity, cruelty, and indifference are the principal evils that devour good; envy is the gangrene of humanity. Evil always makes noise (weapons, missiles, epidemics, famine, and death); good acts in silence. Even small gestures (which make a difference) can change the world; doing much for the innocent, the victims of war, the marginalized, despite the actions of an increasingly ruthless power. But hope does not surrender to evil, the strength of the heart enlightens the mind, despair does not yield to malice and gives way to responsibility. Where the meaning is most complete, the word sprouts, becoming chlorophyll in its powerful simplicity.

Q. 7) Tell us about the great culture and your publications. 

A. 7) The rare, incredible patience of a few exceptional people should be "cloned" for what it manages to combat on a material and moral level. If there is a shred of humanity left in each individual, we should cry Enough! to floods, human and environmental catastrophes, and abolish servility to others, even if, often, even the evil that seemed defeated resurfaces. The time when a mature conscience is still far away. Materialism has established dogmas. Those who have personal experience are branded "mad" by the ferocious "materialist inquisition" for having dared, through their gaze, to go beyond matter. "There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (thus Shakespeare in Hamlet).

I have published 18 books of poetry and 5 "Formation" novels, essays, articles, reviews, short stories, editorials, and translated foreign authors from five continents into Italian. Of the five novels published in several foreign languages, and soon in Russia, two directors are working on a film about Neorealism. I have been published in Italian and international magazines with glowing reviews of my literary and human endeavors. I have been translated into 32 languages, and over a thousand articles discuss my cultural work, which encompasses 55 years of work, sacrifice, and fame. Great culture is wounded and dying, and attempts are being made to erase talents who seek to break free from imposed norms. The family, the nucleus of society, is nonexistent, indoctrinated by social media and communication scams. Zombies are replacing geniuses. Evil is rampant, and the truth is inconvenient. Silence is worse than hell. We are experiencing the anorexia of the century; we are beyond the impossible. Evil is in the norm; it is the tragic bad habit of our time. No one looks at nature with a living conscience; the talent of selfishness reigns supreme, the mad rush to a ferocious corporate standardization based on censorship and hypocrisy. But we must never surrender to these "beasts," never give up expressing our personal talent in the name of vengeance and unconscious retaliation. The highest art is immortal, as is the love of creativity. And no matter what, there are always exceptions that prove the rules. No to involution; every human being is capable of implementing the lifeblood of art, the culture of beauty, of the sacred, of the inextinguishable. Dark evil remains; Cain is ever present among us, Judas follows him, the misery and death that envelop much of the world toasting before tombs and mass graves, from the genocide in Gaza to universal culture. "There sighs, tears, and other woes resounded through the starless air, so that at the beginning I wept." (Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III). Other works of mine are ready to be published, as are many other important ones I've been working on for years. What more can I add? Forgive me for a few small literary secrets, lest I spoil the surprise! We want to delude ourselves that the world is different and that what is happening is just a bad dream.

For this reason, I never stop raising my eyes to the sky, making a wish for every fallen star (the night of San Lorenzo is approaching), and reflecting on planetary influences. The celestial vault captivates with its indescribable sublimity. Through the constellations of the Zodiac, one can gain a glimpse of the "hierarchies." Our ignorance is another world in our unconscious relationship with the unconscious. If this were achievable, a supreme and incomparable level of communication would be achieved, one that would triumph over decay; but the world is given no chance to break the chains of hatred and interrupt the cycle of bloodshed. Words sob in the womb, and the heart has no voice to distract the pain. The Humanity of values represents the concreteness of metaphysics.

Massimo Cacciari has shown us that one can ignore the monstrosity of which man is capable with a higher value: humility, beauty. "In praise" of Mary—the Woman—the great intellectual quotes Nietzsche: "Above the vapors and filth of human baseness there is a higher and clearer humanity {...} one belongs to it not because one is more gifted or more virtuous or more loving than the men below, but because one is colder, clearer, more far-sighted, solitary."