Snapshots: Niccolò Ammaniti
A contemporary Italian author who, for me, brought me right back to square one.
In the years between writing my first and second novel, I had been struggling with what to do, how to proceed, and most importantly, discover the kind of writer I wanted to be. In a way, I already knew, but it was the chance reading of Ammaniti’s I’ll Steal You Away which struck like the bolt out of the blue. Here was a novel that possessed all the characteristics of very good writing as well as engaging storytelling. This novel was a game changer for me, in the sense that it allowed me realize what had been blocking me all those years — I was standing in my own way. This book allowed me to get the hell out of the way and focus on what fiction was supposed to be about: the story.
Ammaniti’s storytelling is one of his major strengths as a writer. It’s serious but also dotted with black humor. It reminded me of a time when I used to write stories without all the ‘literary baggage’. While I think theory is a good thing to know and to utilize, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of getting just a little too immersed in it, causing a ‘gumming up’ of the creative process (at least it did for me). Here was a novel which straddled the line between ‘Literary’ with a Capital L and dare I say, ‘commercial’ fiction, and done in such a way, it would be very hard to pin down exactly what kind of writer Ammaniti actually is. His work is influenced not only by the literature of the past but also contemporary film, comics, video games, but the most important thing, above all else in his work, is his talent as a storyteller.
His other English language novels include I’m Not Scared, As God Commands, Let The Games Begin and Me and You, and Anna, all of which are amazingly written, entertaining stories that will make you think about them long after you finish reading them. They remain with you, like all great literature should.
What Ammaniti showed me as a writer is that there is a wealth of possibilities for storytelling if one just allows himself to get out of the way of the story to be told. Reading Ammaniti was like throwing off the shackles once and for all. Everything changed after reading him.