[MADNESS, POETRY, TESTAMENT IN “LE LIBERE DONNE DI MAGLIANO” (THE FREE WOMEN OF MAGLIANO) BY MARIO TOBINO]

[A psychoanalyst, Andrea Marzi, and a literary critic, Francesco Ricci, each from his specific perspective, take the reader by the hand leading him to experience this classical novel of 20th Century literature. The novel describes, with great cultural awareness, a tragedy of modern humanity; the anxiety, the turmoil, and the suffering, of those immersed in mental illness in our society. The book draws a deep, intense picture, mostly of women living in a psychiatric hospital. This hospital is partly a place of phantasy and partly a mixture of the many such hospitals well known to Tobino, who has been the director of a psychiatric hospital for many years. The authors try to connect their knowledge and experience to initiate a two-way conversation about this novel. Each voice in this conversation has its own autonomy, but they are never the less interwoven, with the hope of providing the reader with a denser and more intense impression than could be obtained from only a single vantage point].