Reading "Heroines" many "Nikita" came back to mind.
The first, and the most authoritative, to establish the connection with Luc Besson's film of 1990 was Sergio Rizzo, the journalist deputy director of Repubblica, signatory of the preface to the debut novel by Vinicio Leonetti, long appreciated reporter for the Gazzetta del Sud with experiences at Sole 24ore, Milano Finanza, Corriere della Sera-Economia. The game of cross-references, as often happens in literature and art, could rewind other tapes and go back to Elton John's 1985 ballad of the same name, which, on the other hand, was a primary source of inspiration for the French director. Generating, as a side effect, a gender misunderstanding was never understood whether intentional or accidental, being the Nikita of the song a female border guard beyond the barbed iron curtain in the prevailing Cold War while Nikita in Russia is a notoriously male name . Leonetti probably stays out of this gendered bustle from the point of view of verbal etiquette, while a foothold can, and must, be found from the substantive one.
As can be seen in the interview he granted to Calabriaonweb, starting with a first, easy but necessary, question: why this title, why "Heroines"?
“Because there are two. One, the main one, is called Marisa. Her name was Concetta but they made her change her name and characteristics, because she is witnessing a mafia massacre and is part of the protocols provided for witnesses to justice, so her name has been changed and she has also undergone an operation on the face. Then there is the other named Violetta, she is a very famous Italian-American journalist ...”
Two women from totally different worlds.
"Yup. Concetta, now Marisa, comes from the slums of Palermo where she sold drugs, dealing with small neighborhood mobsters. On the other hand, Violetta has a father engaged in high finance on Wall Street. The two forcibly meet, because Violetta is kidnapped by Isis in a luxury village in Sharm el-Sheikh, Marisa as a witness of justice enters the police and becomes a secret agent, a spy trained in the Middle East, one of those spies who save lives in the hotspots of the world, a leather head. As such, she is sent to rescue the hostage and succeeds, in a dangerous mission with two of her colleagues, to free Violetta from this bloody fringe of Isis. In the meantime Isis had discovered Violetta to also be a secret agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, with all the complications resulting from the discovery, considering the difficult relations between Arabs and Israelis.”
The development of the plot therefore escapes a southern and localized narrative.
“In fact, deliberately, that's the way it is. I set it in Palermo, firstly, because I lived there for three years. All the places, touched by the action, were actually visited. I know Palermo well and therefore I was able to describe it with realism, managing streets and places with agility. Even the other places gradually touched. Marisa, who became a secret agent, moved to Rome, leaving Palermo for safety and career reasons, having her operational base there, as she was now part of the security services. Then there is the trip, yet another, to Sharm el-Sheikh officially as a tourist. In a tourist village near the scene of the kidnapping, here too seen with my own eyes and fully described. Then the trips to the Middle East. Marisa, following the rescue of this famous person, a journalist for the New York Times and Time and, as sometimes happens, also a secret agent, plays a double game. She is a person in sight, who spreads the news on the international media, revealing the truth about her rescue by a woman of action, who from a witness to justice has become what she has become, intriguing the media around the world”.
Therefore also a metaphorical image of a personal affirmation, of an all-female redemption.
"It is a real ransom, hence the title 'Heroines', a ransom by a person destined to commit a crime, with a future already written between jail and sidewalk, but no. With her strength alone, she became a person at the service of the state and was also gratified by her fame.”
However, not explicit references emerge from news events that involved Calabria and your activity as a crime reporter, exercised for several years, in Lamezia Terme but also in Rome, Palermo and elsewhere.
“The cases concerning the witnesses of justice in Lamezia Terme, as well as in the rest of Calabria, are now well established, as well as the missions of the intelligence services in no man's land to rescue hostages. The reference can only start with Nicola Calipari, an expert in Baghdad in an attempt to save the journalist of the Manifesto Giuliana Sgrena. Having then entrusted a salvific function to a woman in literary fiction responded to the moral obligation to emphasize the female condition that in Italy suffers from historical prejudices and cultural backwardness. I wanted to witness this urgency for redemption so much so, that in writing the novel I tried to identify myself as much as possible with a woman. It is written as if Marisa were speaking, I describe the world with Marisa's eyes, I did it consciously to create an atmosphere of feminine confidence and I must say that many readers have identified with the protagonist. I am really satisfied with this.”
It is an aspect that Sergio Rizzo also highlighted in his short and dense preface to the book, in which, among other things, he also inserts the cinematographic reference, to Luc Besson's "Nikita".
"It's a bit like that, because in the film, Nikita transforms from a human grub into a strong, tough and determined person. I like these possible leaps, starting from such a minority and marginalized situation of women that from the extreme periphery of an urban slum rises to global notoriety. All this has costs, it is not that Marisa gets there because she, as a beautiful, clever and intelligent woman, by virtue of this has found the road smoothed. No. She arrived there paying a high price, starting with the loss of contact with her family, completely erasing her loved ones and her only true love, the man of her heart ".
All these implications, complicated and engaging, even expanded in the physical space of the action, are contained in 180 pages, greatly concentrating the writing style, which is very direct.
“It's the reporter's style, a job I've been doing for 35 years. It is my way of writing. I have no ambitions as an essayist or as a fine writer. I write news, and this time I allowed myself spaces and lengths longer than usual, freeing myself from the constraint of the number of lines or lines. Cross and delight of every journalist ".
How long did the writing of “Heroines” take?
“Not long, five or six months. I immediately found editorial acceptance, after having suffered only one refusal from another publisher who replied to me, asserting that the text was not part of its editorial line due to some explicit episodes of sex. In fact, a discreet erotic vein flows in the novel, Marisa and Violetta are very busy in bed. This aspect must also be addressed. It is part of life. Immediately after "Città del Sole publisher" of Reggio Calabria, in the persons of Franco Arcidiaco and Antonella Cuzzocrea, they proved to be kind, competent and operative. They have worked in a period of restriction due to Covid, in which promotional activities have largely ceased. With all this the book had a large and positive circulation ”.
Not only of readers, but also of critics. In January the novel won the Mario Luzi award in the narrative section, the only award named after the great Florentine poet authorized by the family
“Honestly, I was not expecting it, a great and welcome surprise. It was the only contest I participated in, after having caught a glimpse of it on Facebook, which I did not even know existed. But as a reader of Mario Luzi's poems, a passion that has accompanied me since high school and for which I also did a thesis in the exam, I became intrigued and participated ".
"Heroines" will not be the only literary proof of Vinicio Leonetti.
"No. Meanwhile, I have already written the screenplay, considering that the plot and the rhythm can be translated and interpreted on video. A completely new experience, just as the experience of a writer was new. To do this, I have read dozens of screenplays and viewed as many television series to acquire language and technique. We do not put limits on providence, who knows ... Everything is possible. In the meantime, it was nice trying new things. I succeeded and I look forward to possible developments on this route. ”
The same happened for "Nikita". It can be an omen. For the rest?
"Surely my next novel, which I am already dealing with, will talk about something else. It is neither an action nor a new spy story. I will try my hand at facts, daily news, in everyone's experience. However, it will not come out before all this pandemic cloud cover has dissolved. I risked for the first release, I am not going to repeat the adventure. I want the next work to be presented in normal places, under normal circumstances, with final handshakes and even hugs if necessary.”