La loca

de la Puerta

de al lado.

Alda Merini.

Book cover. Tránsito Publisers, 2021

For Alda Merini, the crazy one was the next door neighbour. To everyone else, it was her. Alda knew this and, instead of denying herself or striving to fit in with the norm, she claimed her madness as a purifying element, a poetic weapon. “Madness is also a magical link with reality, it is a way of taking out one’s barbs to confront an enemy that may not exist,” she writes. Thus, the madwoman seems less insane and ends up becoming a sort of prophet who, from the gates of hell, tells the sacredness of life to whoever will listen. In La loca de la puerta de al lado, memories flow without order. This book, made up of four parts – “Love”, “Abduction”, “Family” and “Pain” – is a beautiful confession in which the author lets her eyes wander over a past full of places, friends, lovers and feelings. Merini, an innocent provocateur, offers us a lucid and imaginative autobiography with great lyrical components.