“Tina, Mafia Soldier” is a gripping thriller centering a teen girl-turned-mafia legend

Organized crime has been a popular subject for tv, movies, and books for decades, and the mafia holds a particular fascination for American audiences. From Francis Ford Coppola's epic “The Godfather” trilogy, to HBO's "The Sopranos", the Italian and Italian American mafia has been portrayed with all the male bravado their creators could muster. 

But women, too, are an integral part of the mafia system. A 1990 expose in Italian newsmagazine “Europeo” put three women front and center on its cover. One of these women was actually a teen girl, Emanuela Azzarelli who was the boss of a mafia gang in Gela. Amidst these revelations, Italian feminist author Maria Rosa Cutrufelli’s acclaimed novel, “Storia di Tina, soldato di mafia”, was published in 1994. 

“Storia di Tina, soldato di mafia” ( or “Tina, Mafia Soldier” in English), follows Tina, a Sicilian “tomboy,” who is eight years old when her father is killed in their home right in front of her. Tina decides then and there that she is going to become a mafioso, and by her teenage years she’s done just that. She’s the leader of a gang of teens terrorizing their hometown of Gela.

The novel is told from the perspective of a teacher-turned-author, who is originally from Sicily, but who moved away as a child. The narrator gathers information from interviews with Tina's family, police officers, a lawyer, and others as she tries to get a meeting with the subject herself. Each interview brings her closer to Tina until finally, they have their one and only encounter.

“Storia di Tina, soldato di mafia” has been translated into English for the first time by Robin Pickering-Iazzi, and released by Soho Press. Robin Pickering-Iazzi ends with an author's note that puts the book into the context of what was happening in Sicily in the 90s. Which was as equally fascinating as the story itself!

We received a copy of Tina, Mafia Soldier from the wonderful publicity team at Soho Crime. You can purchase your own through our Bookshop affiliate link here.

Asha: As much as organized crime is well...crime, it was nice to see a story from the woman's perspective.

Lakshmi: I loved this book right from the beginning. As I was getting ready to mail it to you, I kept thinking that it would strike a chord with you. Tina is FASCINATING.

Asha: Haha, what made you think it would strike a chord with me?

Lakshmi: Oh, not a personal chord. More like “Tina is an interesting complex character to spend a few days with”...

Asha: It's true, she really is!

Lakshmi: …and a look at the societal circumstances that led the mafia to power in these regions. The way both women and men — and teens of all genders — are drawn to the glamorous aspects because there’s NOTHING ELSE going on in these places. The context and the scene setting felt so real.

Asha: The residents of these towns can't get away from the mafia, they're everywhere

Lakshmi: But also — all of the usual circumstances are there

Moribund economy

People fleeing for bigger cities or abroad

No educational opportunities

Governmental indifference to the situation

It’s a perfect storm!

Asha: The narrator outlines all of it in the opening chapter:

By the beginning of the seventies, Gela's population had already doubled. Petrolchimico's settlement had brought work: twenty thousand jobs promised or dreamed up, two thousand five hundred actual plant jobs in 1970 and an indeterminable number of related jobs. Young couples or single males attracted by the miracle of industrialization and the salaries ("northern" salaries, people said, to indicate the considerably high pay) flowed in from every ridge like thawing river water. A hunger for the good life exploded, a voracious consumption, a desire for revenge for the eternal abomination of poverty.

Lakshmi: The first few chapters are GRIPPING.

Asha: It is expert scene setting. The images the prose evokes are so good.

Tina's actual name was Cettina

A name for a little girl, for a sweet little girl, that really didn't fit her, falling off her on all sides like certain little flounced dresses that her mother resigned herself not to put on her anymore and to replace with pants and a t-shirt.

Lakshmi: (The whole book is gripping) The father! She literally watches the hit that kills her father!

Asha: Their faces aren't covered, she knows exactly who they are, but there's nothing she can do, she's eight.

Lakshmi: And it reshapes her whole life (which, of course it does!) but she’s a little girl and jumps into the “mafia soldier” mode of the title.

Asha: What's interesting in all the focus on mafia men is that it's really the women doing the heavy lifting all along. 

Tina's grandmother is the one that everyone's afraid of. So much so that the school is afraid to tell her when Tina's little brother Francesco gets lice. And no one follows up when Tina and Francesco both stop going to school.

Lakshmi: So I feel like Americans will naturally think of the Godfather while reading

And my biggest gripe about the Godfather is it’s treatment of women (in the film, I’m unfamiliar with the novel) But here the women are the drivers (obviously it’s an incredibly sexist system — but the level of buy-in is incredible).

Asha: Women relied on gender stereotypes to provide a smokescreen for their involvement in these families, but they were very much involved from the beginning.

Lakshmi: Also Tina’s resistance to girlhood is very richly portrayed. Gender is a trap for her and the ways she does and does not escape that trap is really the heart of the novel.

But, of course, the other part of the novel that’s thrilling is this writer lady’s obsession with Tina. Tina is a media star and very notorious for her crimes.

Does the writer lady have a name?

Asha: Not in the book. We learn that she's from Sicily originally but moved away as a young child, and returned to live in Gela for a few years before moving away again. And she gets introduced to people through her cousin Mimmo who still lives in Gela. But she’s never named.

Lakshmi: I liked that from a storytelling perspective. It’s like Du Maurier’s nameless narrator of Rebecca - Another story about a timid woman who becomes fascinated by a glamorous and dangerous temptress.

And none of these people understand the fascination or why she’s willingly brushing with danger.

Asha: In some way I think it's less Tina and more the whole system that fascinates the narrator

how Tina got to be the way she is. Because the town as it is now doesn't jive with her memory of it. She feels like she should still be an "insider", but she's been away so long that a lot is unfamiliar.

Lakshmi: Classic dynamic. You can’t go home again. But also — she acts like she’s immune to danger while literally trying to track down one of the most dangerous criminals in Italy, so there is a lot of naïveté as well.

Asha: Is it naivete or her playing with fire, that is the question.

Lakshmi: Did it remind you of Les Miserables a little?

Asha: Not really.

Lakshmi: The inspector and Jean Valjean.

Asha: No, because Jean Valjean is the sympathetic figure in that story…

Lakshmi: Ha, whenever I read about someone obsessively chasing someone down I think of that.

Asha: …he's righteous

Lakshmi: That’s true.

Asha: Tina is a different story.

Lakshmi: Tina has created a narrative where she believes she is righteous though!

Asha: I don't know if she considers herself righteous, other than in her desire to avenge her father's death. She wants the power she's been denied, which I think is different from feeling righteous.

Ok we have to go but do you have a final thought?

Lakshmi: I wanted to give a tip of the hat to the translator. The sentences were beautiful. I hope this book finds a new life here

Asha: This article about the book and the translation is worth reading, especially this part

“There were certain historical events that were alluded to in the novel that Italian readers would have known … and American readers would have thought, ‘What’s going on here?’” Pickering-Iazzi recalled. “In those cases, Maria Rosa was in agreement that I would add in some context within the narrative. … I mimicked the style of Maria Rosa and inserted a bit of new text.”

Lakshmi: I love that!!!!! And all of the insertions are seamless.

Asha: Translation is really an art form!

Lakshmi: If you hadn’t shared the article I wouldn’t have guessed so much had been inserted.

Asha: I wouldn't have either!