ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My most sincere thanks to my beloved grandmother, a positive, dynamic woman and my own life model.
One of the first women to be granted a driving licence, her pragmatism always let her find a cunning way to turn the tables in her favour when faced with problems. With her self-assured attitude she has always been my behavioural opposite and touchstone; the only person to ever make me feel truly precious, despite my low self-esteem.
I will always be grateful to her and I won’t ever forget her dear brother, too, who I hope will look at me and my work from above.
This book has been written in the after-work nights; interrupted, resumed, subjected to fierce criticism. It is full of wounds, as my life is. It is the life of a woman who didn’t want to emigrate but had to; who
