Narrative Non-Fiction

Una donna può tutto

(A Woman Can Do Anything)

Ponte alle Grazie, February 2018, pp.240

Bestseller List – 3 editions in 1 month

The fascinating adventure of the Night Witches, an all-female soviet regiment at the command of fragile and precarious military planes that stopped the advance of the German army in 1942.

Journalist Ritanna Armeni met one of the last survivors of the Night Witches, an all-female flock of volunteers ranging from the captain to the last mechanic, which succeeded in playing a dominant role in the battle against the Third Reich in Crimea, Belorussia and Poland. 96-year-old Irina Rakobolskaja tells the forgotten story of her and her companions on board the Polikarpov U-2, an obsolete biplane made of wood and fabric with no on-board instruments, who undertook a series of relentless and precise nocturnal bombings that gave them the name of Night Witches, Nachthexen.
These were courageous and audacious women who accepted the tragedy and violence of war and death in order to gain emancipation and equality.

Ponte alle Grazie, February 2018, pp.240

  • “A forgotten story […] in which reality takes on the shape of a novel, dotted with a few hints of humour.”

    Corriere della Sera

  • “Ritanna Armeni does justice to courage, talent and pride, and she has done so with the light touch of a passionate and profound narrator, thus proving her capacity to have insight into people and tie up the ends of their stories and feelings.”

    Io Donna

Rights Sold

Brazil: Pensamento, Russia: Limbus Press, Siria: Dar ninawa for publishing.

Ritanna Armeni

Ritanna Armeni (1948) is a writer and journalist; she was editor in chief of Noi Donne and worked for the Manifesto, Rinascita and L’Unità. With Ponte alle Grazie she has published Di questo amore non si deve sapere (No One is to Know about this Love, 2015 – Premio Comisso for non-fiction) about Inessa Armand, Lenin’s secret love, Una donna può tutto (A woman can do anything, 2018), the fascinating adventure of the Night Witches, an all-female soviet regiment at the command of fragile and precarious military planes that stopped the advance of the German army in 1942 and Mara, Una donna del Novecento (Mara. A Woman of the 20th Century, 2020).

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