Accoglienza di parole: la ‘Letteratura del Luogo’

Abstract

Abstract – He or she who comes from a far-off land needs to work out what the place s/he has arrived at is like, what the creatures who inhabit it are like, what they think, how they speak, perhaps even what they dream about. Perhaps everyday words, the ordinary, commonplace words are not enough. Perhaps it is not enough to look around to see what is there, what is happening. Perhaps it will be helpful to work out what conditions have determined what is there, the things that happen. The ‘literature of place’ proposes visions, projects images, ties past and present together, reveals the place with its deep identity, with the historical, geographical, anthropological physiognomy which makes it different from any other place, recognizable, unique. Being in a place induces a sense of craving for belonging that is more or less knowing, conscious. Even for those who rapidly pass through. Therefore, telling them, in their language, where they are, with whom they find themselves, may be a way of making them feel a little less like strangers, a little less distant. How should one narrate the Salento, then, to those who look for refuge on its shores. The depth of words reverberate infinite interpretations; a spider’s web of signs develops around them bringing other signs back from a remoteness of time and place, or signs which refer to a remoteness. Tracking such signs down, establishing or building their relations, comparing their meanings, piercing their accumulations, enquiring into the memory of the local area, decoding the languages of the stone, means coming to terms with the origin, with the intimate nature of the places, with the yeast, the essence of the history of every and each one; it means being able to offer to the ‘foreigner’ a possibility to belong.