Una donna che parla alle donne: la Prima guerra mondiale vista da Matilde Serao in Parla una donna

A re-reading of Parla una donna (Woman's talk), the collection of Matilde Serao's articles that appeared in Il Giorno between May 1915 and March 1916, will help us re-consider the war from a woman's perspective. Indeed Serao is not only a woman far away from the battlefields and from the life of trench, but also a woman who speaks to women. If we accept this particular perspective, the book becomes interesting both as a portrait of social life and as evidence of the common belief that journalists hid or sweetened the harsh reality of war. The three main themes analysed in the articles - the representation of the war, the Homeland, the status of women - are characterized by an underlying rhetoric: the boast of being Italian, the mixture of sorrow and pride of the women whose sons, husbands, brothers are at the front, the courage of soldiers.