The men of Dia: fathers who leave untold pieces of history to their children

In the summer of 1992, the echoes of the bombs in Capaci and via D'Amelio still resounded in the streets of Palermo. Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were swept away within a few months. For many, not only among the Palermitans, the mafia has won and evil has triumphed. To respond to this very harsh attack, however, the State is silently putting in place a special body, born from a project by Giovanni Falcone himself: the DIA, Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate. It brings together the best elements of all the forces of order: they are men who to hunt down whoever killed Falcone and Borsellino leave their families, live undercover in fourth-rate hotels, have rudimentary tools at their disposal but are animated by the feeling highest of a mission that unites them as brothers.

Diana Lagorio gives voice to one of them in the novel "Eyes of a wolf, heart of a dog" (Bompiani, 2023, euro 18, pp. 320. Also Ebook), narrating the investigations, the hours of listening to the intercepted voices, the adrenalin of the blitzes, obsessions and emotions of those crucial days. The protagonist tells them to his son, who at that time was a child full of nostalgia for his father who was always far away. So, he had told that child that he was a special animal, endowed with the ferocious eyes of a wolf but with the faithful heart of a dog. Today she explains the stark truth to him: becoming invisible was the only way to protect him and his mother while she did her duty.

Work crossed by a poignant feeling of hope and a sense of ethics uncommon in contemporary fiction, "Eyes of a wolf, heart of a dog" was for Diana Lagorio a novel that had to be written: «Listening to the stories of the investigators of the DIA I felt an urgency that I couldn't decipher at first. Knowing in depth their fight for the state and against the mafia, I understood that mine was an urgency to do something. And in my case he could only say tell this story. Because telling means illuminating a story and allowing the memory to be transmitted. This is why in the novel I was very clear from the very beginning that it was necessary to dialogue with a son, to turn to him as in an idea of the future, a form of inheritance».

What people are those who join the DIA in 1992?

«They were young investigators who in 1992 became part of a special body, the DIA, born from a project by Giovanni Falcone himself and which brought together the best men of all the forces of order. After the massacre of Capaci to hunt down who killed Falcone these agents leave their families and arrive in Palermo, live undercover in abandoned hotels and begin to lead the same life as the fugitives they have to capture. They live in the shadows, fielding self-sacrifice, sacrifice, intuition, the desire to win what they felt in those years to be a real war. The lofty sentiment that permeates them is that of a mission of justice that will unite them as brothers".

What message does their dedication to justice and the state leave us?

«I wouldn't speak of a message as much as a posture, a new attitude that we get to know as we approach this story: a way of living one's work that becomes a way of being and which in the meantime requires that the I be replaced by the we. Individualism gives way to the group. A us that becomes the State. In a world where people often act for visibility and recognition, the attitude carried out by these men goes in the opposite direction: they choose and understand the importance of the shadow, of silence, of sacrificing their private life not for glory or medals, but to deliver a more just world to everyone".

Does the fight against the mafia still make sense today?

«I would leave this answer to the experts in the sector. I can only say that when the mafia doesn't shoot like it did thirty years ago and no longer produces social alarm, it doesn't mean that it hasn't found new and insidious ways to operate. I would ask myself today about a fight against the mafia that without rhetoric rediscovers its urgency for justice".

What emotions kept you company while writing the book?

«While I was writing, the fear of not being able to restore the meaning of the stories that had been told to me; an incredible passion when the editing of the scenes flowed under my fingers; the need not to make mistakes and to ensure that the protagonists of this story recognize themselves in the mission that I have tried to narrate and dramatize; the desire to immerse the reader in the epochal and family conflicts of this story; the need to talk to a child; a subtle pain that dug into me for personal matters but which led me to sink my pen into a tearing relationship within the family of this novel; the sincere affection towards the detectives I have known; gratitude for my father who gave me a sense of right; the love for my son's father and for my son; the claim to redeem these men from the silence that has enveloped their story for all this time".

What were the sensations when you finished your job?

“When I finished, I felt gratitude towards whoever told me this story and then a biting nostalgia. I missed the detectives I talked to, I missed writing this story. Then I received the unexpected affection of unknown readers and booksellers: people who sought me out, thanked me and even a little cursed because they couldn't tear themselves away from the book and from the emotions that reading awoke in them. In short, all these emotions and even more ».