Thanks for your interest in this sensitive topic. I am grateful that you want to know more about the reasons that led to my choice of remain anonymous in the publishing world and on the web.
The main reason is that I want to protect myself from the masses, whether they find themselves in agreement or disagree with my ideas, because some people could try to stalk me or ‘lynch’ me in any humanly practicable way.
Such situations exist and I intend to fiercely defend my dignity and freedom as a human being. If some people are not mature enough to dissent or encourage in a civilized way and try to step over me or erase my existence instead, I will protect myself.
My mental (and physical) health comes first, together with my private life – which is not a public good but, indeed, private.
The second reason concerns me as a writer and creator of online content, and is that I am firmly convinced, like Elena Ferrante and Eudora Welty, that literature is capable of speaking for itself and, in some ways, of its author without having the author peek out from the back cover and say hi.
How many anonymous or pseudonymous authors of the past do we love madly? Think of Homer or those Chinese poets who left their verses to posterity but not their name and face.
It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Anonymity is a thing good and right.
In fact, I personally think I share too much at times. Now, these aren’t shares that give information on who I am in real life (even when I take photos at friends’ houses – nobody can know a person’s full circle of friends worldwide, right?) but I still share enough of my life and interests to help readers to form an image of me in their mind that is very close to the real one.
And this is much more than what Elena Ferrante does. I’d love to be able to maintain a “strict” anonymity like hers, but I can’t do it. My anonymity always maintains a voice and a form, even if it differs a lot from the real one.
That’s all. I hope you know to respect this private space that separates my personal self from the world. It allows me to bring out the best of me. 🙂
Thanks again for reading this!