Reading as a vector of cultural and human growth, in an initiative aimed above all at young people, in memory of an artist who has always used the word to tell, denounce and express his free thoughts. “The right words” took place on Friday 6 March at the Cirs Formazione school in Via Bonino, the inauguration event of the Mario Falcone Library, named after the writer and screenwriter from Messina who passed away last October at the age of just 73, an active and generous collaborator of the institute, always ready to discuss and listen.
Created as part of “The future is us” – a joint project between Cirs and the Department of Political and Legal Sciences of the University of Messina – the new space aims to be, in line with Falcone’s thoughts, a place of training, a hotbed of ideas, with the aim of refining critical thinking and bringing out creativity without preconceptions and settings.
A library made possible by the donation of books by private individuals and city bodies, including the Colapesce Lions Club and the Liceo Mauriolico, present at the event. In addition to the Cirs students, professor Maria Francesca Tommasini (president of the Department of Political and Legal Sciences of the city university), doctor Maria Grazia Nunnari (personal friend of the writer) and the writer Antonella Ballacchino, who will lead the writing workshops in the new space, spoke.
Adele Allegra, general director of Cirs, introduced the interventions, with the teacher Giusj Vaccarino in the role of moderator. Citing the words of the Messina writer Valeria Ancione on the author’s style, Nunnari, in reference to Falcone’s volume “Piccole Pietre” (2023), donated to the library, pointed out: “His words are pieces of real life put into verse. And I hope that you guys, through reading and knowledge of words, can acquire that fundamental freedom for human beings, especially for critical thinking. Be protagonists of your life”. A concept reiterated in the interventions of Tommasini and Ballacchino.
“We are celebrating the idea that knowledge, reading and sharing can be tools for personal and collective growth – declared Tommasini – A library is a living place that preserves stories, dreams, thoughts and questions, a space where you can stop to reflect and learn to look at the world with different eyes; a point of meeting, discovery and dialogue”. For Antonella Ballacchino that place which holds writings is also a space that passes through lives, creating a new dimension for the imagination: “Among the small books put together to form palaces of imagination, we are starting a fourth dimension: that of “feeling beyond”.
Words have the great power to unite dimensions, creating that bridge that allows one to cross the apparently sidereal distances of thoughts from someone to someone else, without taking into account the end or the beginning.” After the unveiling of the plaque by Davide Crimi, Falcone’s nephew, those present were invited to try their hand at a mini writing workshop inside the new structure.