Behind some poems lies not just a mood, but a historical fissure. Insorge l’Iran - Iran Rises by Gino Pacifico is such a volume: It responds to real events, to violence, flight, and the courage of people who no longer allow themselves to be forced into the role of victims. His poems are not a chronicle in the journalistic sense, but they clearly carry reality within them.
The Death of Jina Mahsa Amini as a Starting Point
The historical core of the book lies in the protests in Iran after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Her name became a symbol of a movement that went far beyond a single case. Grief turned into defiance, defiance turned into a nationwide demand for freedom and dignity. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement changed the perception of Iran worldwide.
Pacifico does not merely record this moment as news. He transforms it into poetic presence. In his opening poem, Iran appears not as a state, but as a girl, a boy, a crowd. This decision is crucial. For it liberates the events from abstraction. The women's protests in Iran are not explained, but made visible as human presence.
When Protest Becomes Internal Change
In an interview with the publisher, Gino Pacifico very clearly describes why these events have not left him: "La gente protesta per un cambiamento umano." This sentence opens up the view of the entire book. It is not just about political opposition. It is about a deeper change, about people who are no longer willing to accept fear as a way of life.
It is precisely in this that Iran Rises differs from a mere documentation. The poems are less interested in political analysis than in the moment when dignity becomes visible. A woman takes to the street. A girl does not back down. A voice becomes part of a chorus. The theocracy tries to enforce order, but life itself pushes into the public sphere.
Cutro and the European Question
However, the volume does not stop at Iran. A second historical core lies in the movement of refugees across Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and the Mediterranean. This is particularly impressively illustrated in the poem about the refugee from Cutro. There, Pacifico connects political violence, Taliban rule, Iranian repression, human trafficking, and European responsibility into a long movement of uprooting.
The tragedy of Cutro represents more than a single shipwreck. In the poem, it becomes a sign of a Europe that shows compassion and yet repeatedly lets people die at its borders. Those who search for Cutro disaster, Mediterranean refugees, or political poetry about migration will not find a sober report in this volume, but a voice that combines pain, accusation, and empathy.
It is precisely this connection that makes the historical background of the book so strong. Iran and Cutro do not stand side by side like two thematic blocks. They touch on the question of freedom. Those who flee do not only flee from poverty. They flee from violence, control, fear, and lack of prospects. And those who protest do not only demand political reforms. They demand the right to live as human beings.
Those who wish to understand more about the role of women in the opening poem can also find our article on Mahsa Amini and the women's protests in Iran. It makes clear how much the political power of the volume stems from concrete images.
Literature as a Testimony of the Present
Insorge l’Iran - Iran Rises is therefore a book about real events, but not only for readers of historical or political backgrounds. It is a collection of poems about what history does to people. About the fear of repression, about the need for freedom, about the dignity of women, about flight, arrival, and the question of whether Europe truly sees.
The poems show that literature does not have to be neutral to be serious. It can be shaken. It can take sides with the vulnerable. It can name names and yet be more than a commentary. In this volume, the historical material is not smoothed over. It remains raw, urgent, sometimes painfully immediate. This is precisely what gives it its impact.
In the end, these poems are read not only as texts about Iran or about Cutro, but as a reminder that history consists of individual people. Of women who no longer remain silent. Of refugees who survive or do not survive the sea. Of voices that assert themselves against violence. With this volume, Gino Pacifico gives these voices a bilingual space.
The book is available in Italian and German bilingual edition as a printed, paperback edition (ISBN 978-3-910347-89-2) and as an EPUB (ISBN 978-3-910347-90-8) in bookstores or here in the publisher's shop.
