The book that made Fallaci famous is a piece of writing that lies somewhere between fiction and confession. It’s a long letter written by a woman to the baby she is carrying in her womb, beginning at the moment when she learns of its existence and ending when this existence ceases. The monologue, addressed to an audience that has no opportunity to respond, confronts the complexities bound up in the choice of motherhood and the struggle of a woman who resolves to have a baby on her own.


The conflict with the man who opposes her decision, the argument with the girlfriend who urges her to think of her career, the difficult relationship with the doctors who don’t consider her, a single woman, to be a ‘proper’ mother, are initially obstacles which she is proud to stand up to. But when the pregnancy begins to demand a radical change of life from her, a total renunciation of her participation in the world, these voices torment her in her solitude. Her determination slowly gives way to uncertainty, triggering in her a process of rebellion against her condition, against another life which threatens her own. She loses the child and accepts its disappearance just as she accepted the proclamation of life: ‘You’re dead but I am alive. So alive that I don’t regret it, and I don’t accept trials, I don’t accept verdicts, not even your forgiveness.’


Avoiding facile rhetoric, the book pursues a clear objective: to open up discussion on the question of women’s free will in motherhood, to acknowledge a woman’s exclusive, cognizant rule over her own life.

‘Yes, it was while I was shouting like this that I heard your voice: «Mother!» And I felt a sense of loss — of emptiness — because it was the first time anyone had called me Mother, and because it was the first time I was hearing your voice, and it wasn’t the voice of a child. And I thought: «He was a man!» Then I thought: «He was a man, he’ll condemn me». Finally I thought: «I want to see him!» And my eyes searched everywhere, in the cage, outside the cage, among the benches, beyond the benches, on the floor, on the walls. But they didn’t find you. You weren’t there. There was only the quiet of a tomb. And in this quiet of a tomb your voice was heard again: «Mother! Let me speak, Mother. Don’t be afraid. There’s no need to be afraid of the truth.»’ p86