A "nervous traveler "and an avid reader, "capable of devouring entire libraries of books." This is how Martina Zago, a LUISS student in Political Science (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) and frequent visitor of the University’s Cultural Activities describes herself.
"A compulsive storyteller," Martina has won the 2012/2013 annual LUISS literary competition (in Italian) with a story about her relationship with nature. "I love nature and I find that writing is a way to give it a voice."
About the award-winning work, entitled The Great Cornfield (in Italian), she says: "I wrote it thinking about the places where I grew up, the Venetian countryside of fog and humidity. It’s the story of a man who abandons his past life, in part because of the economic crisis, and decides to build a little wooden house in front of a cornfield, where he lives far away from a world that thinks he is crazy." The idea came out of a childhood memory: "When I put on high rubber boots and splashed around in the creek looking for tadpoles, insect larvae and water beetles."
This innate harmony with nature led her to attend the Art and Environment workshop and the LUISS Musical Evenings workshop (in Italian). Along with writing and the environment, music is another one of the passions that allows Martina to express herself creatively. "I graduated from a conservatory, and for many years I dedicated myself, body and soul, to my dream of becoming a concert pianist."
Underlying her enthusiasm for cultural activities and artistic expression is the idea that passions need to be cultivated daily. "I am convinced that, with time, our ideas tend to wither, to fade like stars in the laziness of thought. For this reason, and because our lives depend on our ideas, we need to take care of them."