Jonathan Bazzi: «The words to say it». On the issue of Vanity Fair on newsstands

This article is published in number 8 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 23, 2021

Interesting things almost never stand still and even in the painful step of an escape, where the opposing forces of the past and the future are tugged, there is something to save, something to dream, something that will sprout.
Jonathan Bazzi has spent many years running away with his head and, when he was ready, with his body as well. In 2019 he published a book, Temperature – who then the following year was a candidate for the Witch -, in which he tells where and why he fled and what, at a certain point, forced him to stop at least for a moment and reminded him that shame and marginality they have no address.

From where he escaped is Rozzano (family, imaginary, dreams so different from his, violence), what stopped him was a diagnosis of HIV-positive status announced by the fever of the title. Much has been said about his book and will continue to be talked about because the rights were acquired by the creators of Shame on Italy and a film will be born in which, he says, he does not know if he will have a creative role: “I think it can be interesting to see what I have told through eyes that are not mine,” he says. But there is one thing he would like him to remain faithful. “I would like it to be shot in Rozzano.”

The place he wanted to leave?
“Yes, because the book is a lot about that place. Even in my leaving it remains a fundamental presence. The outskirts of the cities of the North, unlike the Roman ones, are rarely seen and told. Rozzano, in the years I lived there, was a piece of the South transplanted to Milan. Now, however, it has become a multi-ethnic place ».
With what spirit does he return?
“I made my peace with it because it’s no longer a cage. For the first 20 years of my life, I felt being born there as a brand and as a predestination: it said not only who I was, but also who I would become. Now I can see, in addition to the problems, also the richness and originality. Useful things for my work. If I hadn’t had this story, my gaze would be on different things. “
His gaze on things is one of the reasons for the success of Temperature. Where do you like to look?
“In the galaxy of values ​​- or non-values ​​- in which I grew up. In the union between my origins and my passions, which we can simplify by defining them as high and low. But more generally I would say that I like to look from the side, I like unpredictable combinations and filiations. Obviously there are other writers who come from backgrounds similar to mine, but often retain a reverence for tradition. The backward trend in European culture is very strong. Personally I am not interested in giving voice to something that has already been heard ».
So you are interested in the present?
«I believe that I am totally permeated and shaped by the things that have happened in the last 20 years. For example, I became a writer thanks to social media: every day I published little stories on Facebook that started to go around and took everything else with them ».
Does this absence of past and tradition make you feel a freer person?
“It is, like so many other things that concern me, an ambivalent situation. So on the one hand it is like this, I am lighter and I can move, on the other I feel the lack of a structure. Mine is a continuous acceptance of emotional limits, knowing that there are shortcomings ».
You have dedicated your book to invisible children, a category to which you have always felt you belong. Now, however, do you feel seen?
“Invisibilities like mine, which arise from the relationship with parents, generate short circuits that are difficult to fix. For example, I struggle to accept that things are going well. But apart from that I would say that I am no longer invisible. Maybe a little bit, a little damage remains. But it seems normal to me. “
Was it the HIV diagnosis that prompted you to write your story?
«I had been collecting material for years, I wanted to write about Rozzano and my story. Then in February 2016 that report arrived and I realized that HIV and Rozzano were talking to each other. I had already left then, I was living in Milan, in the center, I had moved away from the geographical marginality, but my body presented me with a new social and symbolic marginality. Then I thought that I could tell these two hostile and shameful presences of my life from the inside. Trying to update an imaginary both on one theme and on the other, he was a bit stuck in the past ».
After such a personal and strong first book, don’t you have the feeling that you have said everything?
“I’m happy to be able to dedicate myself to something less cumbersome. Fever forced me to talk about the same things over and over, it made me a witness to themes that are dear to me, but they ate everything else. I like the idea of ​​being able to deal with more universal topics, even if my story – they tell me – has generated reflections in people with completely different lives from mine. I think that any experience, if observed with a certain gaze, can become everyone’s ».

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