A woman of belief in an age of doubt

In the crowded theatre of contemporary politics, where image often outpaces substance, Giorgia Meloni walks on stage as a storyteller. I Am Giorgia: My Roots, My Principles is both a manifesto and a memoir — a political declaration wrapped in personal history, a story that seeks to humanise conviction and justify ambition. The English translation by Sylvia Adrian Notini deserves special praise. It is lucid and nimble, capturing the rhythms of Meloni’s speech and the cadence of her convictions. The prose feels authentically hers — brisk, defiant and charged with emotion — without ever losing fluency.

When I first opened the book, I expected yet another political memoir — and with a foreword by India’s Prime Minister, one could easily have dismissed it as a clever marketing exercise for Indian readers. Yet, a few chapters in, those suspicions recede. What emerges is a narrative of surprising candour and coherence, written with a clarity of thought and an almost diaristic sense of self. It is a life shaped, as Meloni insists, by upheaval, timing and luck — all fused with a stubborn belief in destiny.

The story begins in Garbatella, a working-class Roman neighbourhood that functions as both backdrop and metaphor. Meloni’s recollections of her mother’s long shifts, her father’s absence, and her own adolescence — marked by insecurity and ambition — lend the memoir emotional density. Out of this early turbulence, she crafts the moral grammar that defines her politics: faith, identity, family, and belonging.

Over the past two years, Indian readers could scarcely have missed Meloni’s omnipresence on global and social media. Ask anyone, including teenagers who do not follow world news, and you will likely get an impromptu impression of her expressive gestures and dramatic eye-rolls. What might have seemed theatrical turns, on closer inspection, into something more interesting — a leader who commands presence through spontaneity. She leads, quite literally, with a rare, unfiltered style in a world of political choreography. As the narrative unfolds, Meloni traces her path from the youth wing of a post-Fascist movement to leading the Brothers of Italy and becoming the nation’s first woman prime minister. She frames her rise as a story of perseverance in a political world that often viewed her as an interloper. Her self-portrait is that of the outsider: rooted, instinctive, unafraid of unfashionable opinions.

And yet, as some critics have observed, this self-styled image of the girl from the “gritty streets” of Rome deserves a second look. And that the myth of the tough street survivor is overstated. Garbatella, while working-class, has long been a vibrant, even bohemian neighbourhood. The portrait of hardship gives the narrative emotional weight, but also a touch of political theatre — a rewriting of origins into modern storytelling. As a memoir, however, I Am Giorgia remains remarkably readable.

The book’s ideological sections, by contrast, reveal its limitations. Her critique of globalisation and liberalism is drawn in sweeping terms; her defence of tradition is offered as a self-evident truth rather than an argument. The moral clarity she claims often replaces nuance with assertion. And yet, it is precisely this certainty — unshaken, unapologetic — that explains her resonance with millions.

In political terms, Meloni’s success in uniting traditional conservatives with her own more radical lineage has become something of a model abroad. She has achieved a synthesis of populist energy and establishment stability that few leaders have managed. Whether one agrees with her or not, her rise marks a turning point in the language of European conservatism — less about policy, more about presence.

In the end, this book is best read as a portrait of belief — of how adversity, ambition and narrative can forge ideology. It is a window into the mood of a continent rethinking its identity — weary of global abstractions, yearning for rootedness, and searching for authenticity. Meloni’s life story may be partisan, even curated, but it embodies the emotional power of conviction in an age of doubt.