Reconstructing female identity between sacred and memory

First novel for one of the most promising authors on our publishing scene. After her excellent debut in 2023 with the collection of short stories ‘The nostalgia that we will have for us’, Anna Voltaggio returned to bookshops a few weeks ago with ‘La santa degli altri’ (Nei Pozza), already in the running for the dozen of the 2026 Strega Prize. We met her to find out more.

What does ‘The Saint of Others’ say?

A matrilineal story, which in the present has a protagonist ‘in absence’ and in the past follows a section of the existence of her mother and grandmother. I wanted to give life to a single story following two different time periods, splitting the narrative into several elements held together by an investigation into memory, in which the relationship with the sacred understood in a secular sense was intertwined. The saint of the title, Rita, connects Palermo, the city where the novel is set, with the female figures that pass through it over time. The protagonist of the present, Nica, is a young woman in search of lost, undelivered memories, which she pursues as if they were an identity. We discover her through the gaze of a man she has just left, Tommaso, but also by recovering fragments of her own memory represented by the stories of her grandmother and mother from many years before, set in a dark, archaic and violent Sicily. It could be the deconstructed reconstruction of a single female identity, formed in layers from the 1950s to today.

In proposing his book at Strega 2026, the Friend of Sunday Diego De Silva spoke of writing marked by a ‘sense of the sacred’.

I try to disconnect the concept of the sacred from the religious sphere, returning it to a secular and humanized conception. I believe that if we invented stories, sanctified women and men, constructed narratives that include magical elements, and equipped ourselves with amulets and systems of symbols, it was due to a profound need in ours to give value to the existence of a god or gods. Imagination may be contradictory, but the moment you believe in something that thing exists and cannot be dismissed as a game. If Santa Claus is real for my son, he will continue to be as long as he believes he is. Various concepts linked to the religious sphere, such as that of forgiveness, are an expression of simple humanity. We can sacralize many things by making them ideals, points of reference. And then tear down our own beliefs, building new ones. We are constantly changing creatures, who also need the sacred dimension. The only element of internal fixity that does not depend on us is linked to memory: we can choose what weight to give it, but it still remains fixed and deposited in a place.

Palermo, in his book, does not seem just a background, but almost a character.

It’s my hometown and embodies the only place where the story I had in mind could take place. While writing, I returned to its streets several times with my mind and body, to rediscover it with a different depth after having left it 20 years ago. I worked on memories, however manipulated by myself today, trying to go backwards vertically. In search of the girl who lived there, what she felt when she left and how she ended up splitting her gaze on a place that had become both near and distant at the same time. My Palermo has multiple layers. The first linked to the superficiality of a present in which the city almost markets its folklore, the decadent and unique beauty of its alleys and markets. Then I went further down, towards the true energy it possesses, trying to build symbolic references between the streets and the characters’ states of mind. Especially with regards to the male narrative voice of Tommaso, who, while wandering around Palermo, experiences the absence of a woman, Nica, who abandoned him before he had placed her exactly in his existence. The city appears intact to him, while his ego disintegrates. And the traces of this secret love, which no one knows anything about except the ex-lovers, are everywhere. Palermo helped me talk about absence, the absolute intimacy of a pain experienced without anyone to cling to.

Tommaso and Nica are characters in search of themselves, one through loss, the other through memory.

Is Palermo male or female?

I feel she is strongly female, due to the characteristics of her ability to seduce, the type of power she possesses, the type of edges she uses to defend herself Nica, the main character of the novel, is mainly told about her absence: are the characters better described by subtraction?

Already while writing my previous book I realized that I was working a lot in subtraction. ‘The saint of others’ talks about renunciation of love, identity and memory: starting from an escape, and a consequent lack, seemed to me the right key to delving into these themes. Not if you tell it better by subtracting, it seemed to me the best way to convey the story I was thinking of.

Also in this novel, as in her debut stories, she is committed to giving voice to a man. It happens because I am fascinated by what is different from me. Empathizing with a male figure becomes an experiment that interests me as a writer and as a person, because putting yourself in the other’s shoes represents a key to all human relationships. A basis of coexistence.

Another, impalpable protagonist of the book is Santa Rita.

Rita is the rock star of saints, she has devotees all over the world, including great artists. But in Palermo she has taken on the particular role of women’s ally: she is the advocate of desperate cases, the one who ‘fixes husbands’. She has always been asked for help in finding a solution to the wrongs of a highly patriarchal and emotionally uneducated system. There is traditionally a relationship of sisterhood between her and the women of the city. Which for me goes even further: my mother is called Rita, my grandmother was deeply devoted to her and I feel her as close as an aunt.

What do you expect from the Strega?

At this stage absolutely nothing. There are 79 proposals and until April 1st, when the dozen will be chosen, it would be absurd to entertain expectations. Among other things, I know the prize well having experienced it from afar, in other professional capacities, for years, and I know perfectly well that many stars must align to truly compete in this race. For the moment, therefore, I look at the sky. Also because I read several books in the competition and found them beautiful.