The Rebel

Giorgio Van Straten and Alessandro Cassin will discuss the making of Van Straten’s book and the challenges and marvels of working with history and literature.

A new book by Giorgio van Straten, La Ribelle. Storia straordinaria di Nada Parri, Laterza, 2025 (forthcoming in English with Other Press, in 2026) recounts a little-known yet remarkable story that invites us to put aside the rhetoric and contentions over historical memory and reconsider the values and ideas that propelled resistance in the past.

For Italy’s post-war generations, the courage and determination of the Partisans have always been a source of inspiration and respect. Historian Carlo Greppi explains: “We celebrate the liberation from twenty years of dictatorship and wars, five years of world conflict, twenty months of civil war. Freedom was conquered, with and without weapons, by a large minority: an army of volunteers, men, and women. It is the highest moment in the history of Italy, and it must inspire us”.

Giorgio Van Straten, whom many of us fondly remember for his tenure as Director of the Italian Cultural Institute (2015 -2019), weaves his novelistic skills with his passion for historical investigation, ushering us into the life of Nada Parri, one of many unsung protagonists of the Resistance.

From her early years,  Nada Parri, “the rebel” waged one battle after another, straddling the line between personal and collective experience. Her humility and unwavering commitment to truth and justice serve as a beacon of hope that every generation places in the future, against all odds.

In the novel, Nada is twenty, has a two-year-old daughter, and is alone. Her husband left as a volunteer for the Italian war in Ethiopia. Her family is far away, and she knows almost no one in the new city where she lives. Hermann is nearly forty years old, has a family in Germany, is a non-commissioned officer in the Wehrmacht, and hates Hitler. They meet by chance on a winter afternoon in a small Tuscan town and fall in love. Together, they decide to escape; she from the wrong family, and he is from an army that, once an ally, has become an occupier. They flee to the mountains and join the partisans. They risk their lives and participate in the liberation of Parma, convinced that the future is on their side. But the future takes many unexpected turns. Van Straten compassionately follows Nada’s and Hermann’s footstep, chasing people, documents, objects, and photographs, allowing the past– or versions of the past–to resurface with great emotional impact, beauty, and unanswered questions.