‘It’s Not My Fault’ (Non è colpa mia) by Vanna Ugolini and Lucia Magionami: A Review

Review

By

Cecilia Sandroni

Wretched is the snow. Wretched is the friend. Wretched is the brake pedal that slipped, wretched is the destiny that didn’t stop that hand.

“Non è colpa mia” (it’s not my fault) is written with four hands by the journalist Vanna Ugolini and psychologist Lucia Magionami. It deals with a series of unfortunate coincidences that led to the death of women at the hands of their men, those men who promised to love them and share with them a life project.

The murderers of women, interviewed in the book, after a three year process, a final judgment and years of jail in front of them, are still reluctant to admit their responsibilities in the killing of their wives. They try to find excuses, justify their actions and downsize their responsibility. Though it is their fault, the responsibility of what happened is on them.

But this is not the only outcome that emerges from the book. These interviews play a really important role in helping us understand what leads to a feminicide within a violent relationship. They lend a hand to us in understanding how a family man changes and evolves, one day after the other, to a man being able to kill.

We are not dealing with ill people, hit by a fit of rage. We are dealing with normal men that didn’t accept the decision of autonomy of their partners, men that don’t know how to call these new emotions they try to stop, a path that would lead to a break up with a violent action.

While the first part of the book represents an emotional and evocative narration of Luca’s, Giacomo’s and Luigi’s story, in the second part the psychologist and psychotherapist Lucia Magionami gives a scientific key of lecture to the many questions that we have on violent relationships and on the mechanisms that allow these events to seem complicated to whoever sees them from the outside and that will hopefully at the same time help women who are living them.

“Non è colpa mia” (it’s not my fault) can be purchased here

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 25 November 

Vanna Ugolini

Vanna Ugolini is a graduate in economics, a professional journalist, is deputy head of Terni’s “Il Messaggero” editorial staff, and a mother of three. She has been dealing with the most important cases that occurred in Romagna and then in Umbria. She has participated as a postgraduate master in communication with the University of Perugia and as rapporteur at numerous conferences on issues related to the exploitation of prostitution and violence against women. In 2011, along with the Siulp (police syndicate), she produced a documentary ‘Truth about Drug Trafficking in Perugia’. Vanna has published several books including ‘Tania and the others‘, ‘The story of a child slave’ (Press Alternative, 2007), with whom she won the Benin City Girls’ Prize (2008) and’ In the name of Cocaine’ (Intermedia Editions, 2011). She is also president of Libertas Margot, a group of professionals dealing with gender violence.

Lucia Magionami

Lucia Magionami is a psychologist and psychotherapist, and has been working on gender violence since 2003. In addition to the freelance profession of studies in Florence and Perugia, she is involved in training and awareness raising on gender issues both as a freelance professional and as an advisor to public bodies, in addition to having been a speaker at several conventions concerning intra-family violence. Lucia is currently part of the Libertas Margot association, headquartered in Perugia, which has at regional level been the first stopwatch for men who are active in violence. Since 2015, Perugia has also formed the first group of “Librotherapy: words spoken, emotions told”, which organizes group therapy meetings to talk about emotions and feelings through books chosen by the therapist to travel through the psyche.

Cecilia Sandroni

Cecilia Sandroni is a member of the Foreign Press in Rome, in addition to being an expert of international relations in communication. Her skills range from film to photography with a passion for human rights. Independent, creative, concrete, she has collaborated with major Italian and foreign institutions for the realization of cultural and civil projects.

www.fondazionefrancozeffirelli.com