Anna Kanakis: «Fersen’s story in Capri, I had to wear the trousers of a homosexual from the 1920s»

Everyone says they love Naples, but how much do you know it?
Less than I would like. There are so many things to discover and now there is a church being renovated which they told me about, I don’t remember the name but I am determined to recover it… I feel the city’s charm powerful, an atmosphere of freedom. I’ve been there many times, on my way to Capri where I made many inspections in the house of the protagonist of my book, who really existed. Beverello, hydrofoil, Villa Fersen: it was before Covid. Then during the segregation I was shut up in my studio here in Rome writing the novel

Do you keep writing by hand?
All time. To find the magical chord, that sound you only hear when you write with a pen. Then I copy to the computer, see the page and print. I wrote the book in six months. I’m fast. This was also the case with my two previous novels. The inspections took a long time because I wanted to find the meaning of those places, capture a little of their soul and characteristics. Mine is not a simple character: I had to put on the pants of a 1920s homosexual. When homosexuality was a crime and was defined as sodomy.

Not a crime today. But in your opinion, in this new political arrangement, will it be difficult to conquer new rights for the rainbow world?
I’m watching carefully. At this moment I have gathered from the LGBT world and from many friends who, having written a book about them, am very afraid. The fear that the rights acquired with so much effort will be dismantled. I have also heard some statements unwilling to increase these rights, to make these people equal. Because we are all the same and we all fly in the sky together. We should all have the same rights, but I trust that perhaps a mediation will be obtained. I have sent the book to someone in the Government, but I won’t say to whom, and I have received responses that have warmed my heart. There is no reserve on the part of the top management, those who count do not have a one hundred percent negative attitude. It is the rear that makes noise, what goes around those in top positions, that express the wrong opinions.

Of your many lives, do you ever miss politics?
I had a brief political interlude with Cossiga: the enchantment of that great gentleman and the things he suggested remained with me and unfortunately the comparison with what we see now, indeed for some years now, is inevitable. We were even police officers for a while. And I didn’t take this thing so gladly: people have to decide who they want to govern. I like politics, I still follow it and I get angry when I see certain attitudes that are too decisive or too light, without being able to find a mediation or a magical agreement. Politics art of the possible, convergence.

Where did he leave a piece of heart?
Today I’m in love with writing, for me a professional growth. By now my time as an actress felt repetitive and I was always looking for different, new roles. My first book was immense joy, like having given birth to a son. I peeped into a world that fascinated me and I fell in love with the historical genre. I like to enter the lives of others and make them reborn by being faithful to their time and their soul.

She is a very beautiful woman…
I turned 60, beauty is something else. And in any case, beauty cannot be conquered, not a merit…

A very illustrious colleague of his claimed that beauty will save the world.
Understood in a high and Platonic sense. Beauty in my life played a role. At 15 Miss Italy, in Sicily, made me grow up in one day. I was a little girl. Then I also discovered the less fascinating things about beauty: envy and, in my work, human feelings unknown to me. I have always had to demonstrate that I have brains, because there has always been the custom of considering beauty separated from intelligence. It is clear that, being of pleasant appearance, when I was an actress I was observed more carefully and I also had to protect myself. In the end the budget, having a bit of brain, is positive. Beauty is an undoubted value.

The nuisances, the harassers, how did you keep them at bay?
Even annoyances are managed with intelligence and with the terrone principle dictated by mother: don’t trust them. Having strong values ​​helps to look at things in the right light and to defend oneself.

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