Blog | Finding beauty in the ordinary and life between cultures, by Daria Platania

Having explored my new pen name, I started researching the names I noticed in my London home. It turned out that I’d been using “facilities” made by some of the most famous British brands: Dudley, Celmac and McAlpine. How British is your toilet? Mine turned out to be proudly so, even though, after being painted red (???) by the previous owner, it has, over the years, acquired a soft pink tinge reminiscent of the Italian stucco. Not only does this British toilet have the famou

My new pen name Platania comes from my husband's ancestors in the South of Italy (a small village called Motta Sant'Anastasia to be precise). But before it became popular in Sicily, it formed as a word in Greek – a word to describe a tree. Plátanos (πλάτανος) comes from the Greek platýs (πλατύς) meaning “broad”, which captures the strength and the size of the Plane Tree (commonly known in Europe as Platanus orientalis). This plant taxonomy slash etymology would not particular

Am I Italian? This is actually a wrong question. As you probably know, in Italy it’s first your region (regioni) and then your country (L'Italia). So, which region do I identify with? Since I’m living in London, I officially belong to Italiani Residenti all'Estero (AIRE) – a bunch of Italian citizens crazy enough not to live in their beautiful motherland. So, I’m an Italian expat – or never-pat, since I haven’t lived in Italy permanently yet: I “only” gave birth to two Italia

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin became... Mary Shelley. Mary Ann Evans became... George Eliot. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller became... Agatha Christie. Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya became... Teffi. Edith Eva Elefánt became... Edith Eger. Eva Geiringer became... Eva Schloss. Virginia Stephen became… the fearsome Virginia Woolf. There are several reasons: Women writers get married They want a catchy pen name They want to avoid gender/race/nationality-based prejudice ALL OF THE ABOVE The

I finally did it – I changed my name. Or adopted a new one. Like a new set of clothes for autumn. Or a new pair of sunglasses. A new school year – a new me! Well, this name is not completely new. I was called Daria at birth, and in 2003 (my first year at Oxford) I decided to transliterate my name as Darya with a "y" (according to the official BGN/PCGN romanization system). My name is spelled “Daria” in my Italian passport, and this year my married name, Platania, will be adde