A model of female freedom: Maria Occhipinti’s «Una donna libera»

Abstract

Maria Occhipinti (1921-1996) has been recorded in Sicilian history as emblem of Sicilian women’s protest in the mid-forties, events she narrates in Una donna di Ragusa. In her posthumous work Una donna libera Maria sums up her life from those years just to the time before her death: it is the autobiography of a self-taught woman that was, despite everything and everyone, a free woman slave to nothing – nor political ideas, nor a comfortable and bourgeois life – or anyone – family or love –, always coherent with her ideals and ready to fight for the fundamental human rights. Una donna libera tells us the story of a pilgrim in the world, a rebel, a rather difficult woman, uncomfortable for institutions and people, including intellectuals. Maria Occhipinti will become only in the XXI century a model to be followed by other women.