Michela Murgia's 'Ricordatemi come vi pare' is an intimate conversation over coffee

Michela Murgia's posthumous book 'Ricordatemi come vi pare' (Mondadori, 2024) is presented not as a novel or a tearful farewell, but as an intimate conversation between friends. The work is described as a series of dialogues touching on private life, past memories, and current affairs, meant to be savored slowly like a cup of hot coffee. Murgia's words carry the intimacy of face-to-face communication, relying on gestures, tone, laughter, and emotion. The book is unusually long for Murgia, originating from oral storytelling rather than solitary writing. It takes the form of a greeting, as friends who won't see each other for a long time try to give as much as possible in shared time. The text covers Murgia's reflections on fascism, echoing Umberto Eco's concept of 'Ur-Fascism'; her electoral experience in Sardinia; her queer family and 'children of the soul'; her own role as a 'daughter of the soul' to her aunt; and personal memories including her first time with a man after thirty-two years of abstaining under the guise of religion. Murgia uses Sardinian dialect, the language of the heart, when feeling at home. The reviewer, Antonia De Francesco, concludes that through this book, she remembered a friend.