Dear Wall

DEAR WALL

A man the state refused to name spent decades carving his existence into a wall - one letter at a time. The wall still stands.

Fernando Nannetti arrived in the world as two letters on a ledger: NN. Nessun nome. No name. Moved from hospital to institution to asylum, he was committed for something as small as an insult to the wrong official - and it was there, with the buckle of his belt, that he began scratching words into the plaster of the courtyard wall. A name. A rank. A version ...