"It takes about ten minutes to eat a bowl of risotto, but growing the rice is a lot of work". This is the opening of the new children's book written and illustrated by Hayley Egan.
Born and raised in New South Wales, Hayley studied in Italy for some time following high school: an experience which has marked the beginning of her passion for the Italian language, but also for our country's culture and popular music. Now mother of two bilingual kids and bilingual herself, Hayley has recently published her second illustrated book, titiled Sebben che siamo donne/We are women. Like in her first book, Pizzica Pizzica, her new work is also written both in English and Italian, has a female protagonist and is inspired by an Italian story, in this case about mondine, paddy fields workers.
We have caught up with Hayley in our studios to talk about Sebben che siamo donne.
Mondine or mondariso were female seasonal workers employed in Northern Italy's paddy fields, especially in Lombardia, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Veneto. Their task was extirpating weeds that could stunt the growth of rice plants. Working conditions were extremely hard, as the job was carried out by spending the whole day bent over, often bare-foot, with legs immersed in water; malaria was not uncommon, as mosquitoes were widespread. Moreover shifts were long and women were paid significantly less than men. For these reasons since early in the 20th century mondine started to organise themselves to fight for some basic rights, in particular to limit shifts to 8 hours a day.
Hayley Egan first encountered the story of the Italian paddy fields workers through one of their best known songs, La Lega, and two years ago she went to meet a few elderly mondine in Bentivoglio, near Bologna, in order to listen to their stories and show them the first draft of her book. With captivating illustrations and a language accessible to the youngest readers, Sebben che siamo donne/We are women tells the story of a young mondina, who learns to fight for her rights.
"I think kids need to be stimulated with topics like these, which are about things in real life, which we all have to face: in Pizzica Pizzica it was depression, loneliness, in Sebben che siamo donne again loneliness but also how we can solve problems when we work together"
In this video Hayley recounts her meeting with Renata, a mondina from Bentivoglio.
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