Obituary: cafebabel.com editor Ilaria La Commare, 30
Published on
Today, we remember a former editor (20 November 1978 - 17 March 2009, Paris), for her outgoing personality and everything she did for this media. The Italian journalist and anti-mafia activist decided to leave us and a life in which she did not pass by unnoticed Lively, radiant, honest, affectionate, original, funny, a master chef, Ilaria was always ready to forge new friendships.
She remains a veritable precursor of social networks; Ilaria was someone who was unforgettable even in life.
As an anti-mafia activist, she worked at the heart of the Cunstrastamu association, based in Rome, where she completed her studies at the LUISS Guido Carli university in 2004. She collaborated enormously in their various initiatives and networked relentlessly. In Paris, she was associated with La Libreria, a French-Italian bookshop, where she often interviewed authors in public readings. She also collaborated with the publishing house Leconte.
Ilaria first came to our attention as editor of the Italian version of cafebabel.com, between September 2005 and February 2006. She more than exceeded the abilities of her predecessors in her fine leadership of a network of author and translator teams. Ilaria laid a great number of the building blocks of this website, because she passionately believed in the importance of information without borders, in a debate which was both impertinent and multilingual.
Speaking of languages - Ilaria, who spoke four, played with them just like a child plays with plasticine. She moulded them, tipped them upside down and made them her literary own, going as far as creating her own unique 'commarique' brand of original neologisms; in the ‘about me’ section on social networking site Facebook, she tells us: ‘my commaritiness isn't just anagraphic.’ 'Her Commarity' did it mixing her native Sicilian and Italian, in the French she used throughout her last years living in Paris, and in the language of Shakespeare, which she picked up after a spell working in Dublin.
On behalf of editorial teams past and present in cafebabel.com's eight year history, its e-community and its readers, we thank Ilaria for her energy and her professionalism, for the wild vitality that she knew how to blaze amongst us. We send her family and friends our deepest condolences. Ciao Ilaria. We miss you, and we will miss you.
Ilaria La Commare's parents and sister survive her in Trapani and Rome.Click here for an anthology of Ilaria's articles which were published on cafebabel.com. Use the scrolling menu inside the articles to read her writing in the language of your choice