A few years ago on an ordinary day I was stopped by a sudden summer shower while I was walking under the arcades downtown Milan.

Waiting for the rain to stop, I entered the nearest bookshop. It was there that I came across Anne. I was wandering aimlessly around the bookshelves when it got dark unexpectedly. It was a sudden blackout caused by a lightning fallen too near. In these days of terrorist attacks only the faint light of the emergency lamps made the customers to keep calm.

I couldn't see very much but I was attracted by the faint reflection of the neon lamp on the cover of the only one shiny book among a lot of matt ones in front of me. Light came again; a female profile of a disarming beauty was hypnotizing me. She was a foreigner, she introduced herself as Annemarie Schwarzenbach.

She told me about her life; I got lost and then I found myself on a train going southwards, back home. An untamed spirit, a delicate soul, a fallen angel; that woman was charming me. In those hard years which marked the beginning of the XX century she overcame unreachable borders and went along roads that were unconceivable for a woman of those times.

Writing, photography, passion, love; she lived every moment with the sensation that it was unique, unrepeatable, necessary. She didn't lead an easy life, always escaping incomprehension, addiction, fear, a world which disappointed her and which didn't belong to her, escaping a life which wasn't hers, escaping herself. She was always running away from all those shades we too often have inside us, always searching for something, for the other one.

I myself was searching for something, something else, something unknown, something different from me. Soon I realized I was on her side, on the other side, on the shade side.

This web-site is dedicated to Anne and to all those women who are looking for themselves and you can only meet while travelling.