El escupitajo

"Ma'am, why?" Judge Cesare Terranova, a pioneer in the Cosa Nostra investigation, asked in 1963. It was Serafina Battaglia who, on the other side of the desk, handed the magistrate the photographs of her husband and her son, murdered in just over twenty-four months in a mafia dispute. From that moment, in Palermo and in other Italian courts, the widow began to speak openly about a criminal organization whose existence many continued to deny. She knew her well, because "the females of the house know it". Serafina thus began her own war against the mafia, the State and the Church, and since the gun she never parted with was not enough, she turned the machinery of justice into her weapon. She was not content with revealing names, plots and crimes; Between contempt and mockery, she also filled the courtrooms with theatrical gestures and reckless spitting that stripped the mobsters of her aura of power. Based on her words in an interview given to RAI in 1967, this novel explores the multiple facets of the figure of the widow Battaglia -witness, repentant, courageous mother, lonely and fierce avenger-, and discovers a woman -never guilty, never innocent-dramatically caught between tradition and revolt.