It is a book that changed his life. Three years ago, Tal, in his twenties, reads in one go The Art of Joy, a 624-page pad signed Goliarda Sapienza. The one who has not yet started his gender transition is passionate about the life of his heroine, an extraordinary Sicilian, born in poverty on the 1er January 1900, became a princess, anti-fascist, feminist, political prisoner, always in search of happiness in “this walk called life”, as the author writes.
Tal has recently been involved in the Collages Féminicides movement. In the squat of 14e district of Paris where actions against violence against women are being prepared, the novel passes from hand to hand and is the subject of intense discussions, in particular on violence and rape, at the beginning of the work. With a few other texts by Sapienza, discovered in the process, Tal celebrates The Art of Joy on social networks, where he is now followed by tens of thousands of people.
For him, the writer, who died in 1996, is a female figure of reference, a symbol of freedom. A few months after reading it, he decided to change his surname. The young man opts for the pseudonym “Madesta”, inspired by the first name of the heroine of the novel, Modesta. “Like a talisman, this character guides my life”, confides the feminist activist, brown hair cut short and colorful T-shirt, on the terrace of a Parisian café.
Above all, it allows him to distance himself from the serious physical and psychological violence suffered during his childhood, and also to“to aspire to many things”, in writing and activism. He thus published, in April, Desire at all costs (La Collection sur la table, Binge Audio), an essay in which he celebrates forms of love that do not need sexuality to exist. At home, Tal Madesta always keeps a pocket version of The Art of Joy, for a future gift. He already offered it “at least forty-five times”.
A figure of female emancipation
Thanks to powerful word-of-mouth, Goliarda Sapienza and her masterpiece have become cult. In France, approximately 500,000 readers have discovered The Art of Joy. This success encountered since its first publication, in 2005, by Editions Viviane Hamy, even sparked a sudden interest in Goliarda Sapienza in Italy, where publishers had always refused her text.
The novel was first published in Italian in 2008, by the prestigious Einaudi publishing house. In the aftermath, around twenty countries, in Europe and around the world, have become passionate about this forgotten writer. When it was reissued in 2015 in France, by Editions Le Tripode, the text even aroused the enthusiasm of a new generation. The publishing house has also just published in October the noon threadthe story of the turbulent psychoanalysis of Goliarda Sapienza.
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