ABSTRACT
There have been two real wounds in my life: one due to departure, the other to return. My departure from Italy amounted to a recognition of defeat-a decision that, under the circumstances, I had to leave in order to stay alive, not only physically (for indeed there were threats against my life), but above all intellectually. Life was important to me, and the first thing I did on arriving in exile in Paris was to have a child. My youngest daughter was born in 1984 and is now seventeen years old. For me and for her mother, who was my companion at the time, it was a way of reaffirming life.
