Sardinia: like a childhood

Summer 1932. Elio Vittorini is 24 years old. He sets off for Sardinia with some friends from Sicily. By steamship. Bound for Terranova: that was the name of Olbia. Before the war, before – long before – the Aga Khan and the Costa Smeralda. Another era. Vittorini writes a diary, "Sardegna come un'infanzia", published by Bompiani. A small, extraordinary book. A landing on a mysterious, rugged planet. A land almost untouched by the history that shaped the rest of Italy. Yes, pirates used to come here, and then the Spaniards and the French, and then the House of Savoy. But most of the interior and the coasts remained unspoilt. Like ancient books, with pages to be opened with a letter opener. A land that had remained a child. The landing. The heat, the Sardinians’ eyes fixed on the strangers. No one speaks. Of the women: “And here is a line of women, five or six of them, creeping away along the walls. In single file, wrapped tightly in black shawls, their long black skirts barely touching the ground, they turn into a side street, like fleeing foxes”. Then on a rickety minibus, along roads of white dust, into Gallura. “For kilometres, not a soul or a roof is to be seen. And the impression of the plateau becomes clearer, as if the sun’s source were closer. The air carries its scent: of the sun. Of pure fire, devoid of any acrid fuel fumes. And of dry stone. But of heathland too. And of snakes’ remains. The scent of Sardinia”. (The scent of Sardinia is still exactly the same. Myrtle and helichrysum, and the sun beating down on the parched earth). “Finally, we descend towards the sea. In Sardinia, you can always feel it, a hundred and a hundred kilometres from the coast, shining in the air on every side. Sardinia is a true island, in all its splendour and its storms. […] The land is ravaged by the mistral. Which, for the moment, is not blowing. Long, dark stretches of land seem suspended in the air, where the plain drops away. There lies the sea: that air. Uninhabited, like the Light of the First Day.” Like the First Day. What I would give to be with those lads, in the summer of 1932.

Elio Vittorini

Bompiani, 140 pp., €11.40