‘A certainty dawned: ‘I had not to be nostalgic for what I had been or for what I might have become. Instead I had to love what I was and to seek what I ought to be.’ She abandoned a life’s project composed in the subjunctive mood for one in the indicative. She is emphatic: ‘It was a long journey. Nothing happened overnight. But this is the condition, at once, of redemption and of every battle. […] Forgiveness does not come about in the abstract; it calls for someone to whom it can be addressed, someone from whom it can be received.’

A passage from The Shattering of Loneliness on the testimony of Maïti Girtanner. Here you can find my introduction to a new Italian translation of Maïti’s book-long conversation with Guillaume Tabard, published today.