My book, A Single Witness, is based on the true story of Anna Maria Bonon, a 13-year-old illiterate girl from a mountain village who took her father to trial for abuse in Venice in 1757 and won. Anna Maria lived in the village of Piovene with her father and grandmother. It was a town where there was always someone watching from behind a curtain or down an alleyway.
The point of view shifts between Anna Maria, her grandmother, Cattarina, and the village priest, Father Antonio. Cattarina has divided loyalty between her son, who has a violent temper, and her granddaughter. Everything she says and does is an attempt to hold together a family that is tearing apart. Father Antonio is more elusive. He asks Anna Maria to his house to speak about her father. He encourages her to ‘scream louder’ so the neighbours will come and help her but they don’t. As she begins to voice her story more publicly, he urges her to deny it and, eventually, to lie.
When her father is arrested for attempted murder, Anna Maria walks 27 kilometres to Vicenza with her grandmother to learn what will become of him. She goes alone to the Palace of Justice to report him to the authorities for rape. The Council of Ten come from Venice to interview the community about Anna Maria’s father molesting her.
The book is about the need to tell your truth above all else. The need for your testimony to be heard so that you can live your life. It is about listening to the most vulnerable children and working to keep them safe.
I began working on this novel in 2018 after finding a summary of the story in a book by American historian, Joanne Ferraro. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had just taken place. I could not believe that in 1757, a child had had the courage to speak out, and she had been believed and her abuser convicted.
I was fortunate to receive funding from Creative Australia to undertake archival research in Italy. Studying the court record was like examining a cold case. It was a 100-page document handwritten by several different members of the Council of Ten and signed by the doge.
Anna Maria did not waver from her testimony, despite the attempts of others to silence her. She had been raped four times. Studying this record, I saw how Father Antonio had tried to manipulate the story. He denied he had ever spoken to Anna Maria. He tried to dismiss her.
What is extraordinary about Anna Maria’s testimony is how articulate and confident she is, how certain that she has been wronged. A Single Witness is a story of courage and hope.
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