When the first vera breaks in the northern hemisphere, an icy cold runs through the entire American South.
Gianni Miná, the most Latin American of Italian journalists, died, an institution in his country.
On May 17 he was going to turn 85 years old.
Aspiring writers might take a little interest in the life and work of a singular man.
It will be necessary.
To say that he was a surrogate father for Diego Maradona is an exaggeration, but since Guillermo Blanco, then press officer for 10, introduced them months before the 1990 World Cup, Miná and Maradona had a close relationship.
Miná was the strongest defender of the captain of the National Team when the ground was being prepared in Italy for what happened at the World Cup and the subsequent suspension for doping in 1991. It seems that Diego was the only one who was given.
Miná was a journalist, writer, essayist, producer and director of documentaries and a holy word for the well-intentioned.
He had an unusual rapport with Latin America and with Argentina in particular.
Before that World Cup he went on a tour that also took him to Montevideo and interviewed old glories from Peñarol, Nacional and La Celeste.
Diego's mural in Napoli. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
It was not the only thing,
in 1987 he recorded Fidel Castro for 16 hours
, from which a documentary was born that later became a reference book for historians.
For the first time, Fidel spoke in depth about his relationship with Che Guevara
.
Years later he repeated the meeting and a new book.
The first was prefaced by García Márquez, the second by Jorge Amado.
The Bearded One wasn't the only one who sat across from Gianni.
Rigoberta Menchú, Chico Buarque, Ray Charles
completed the broad framework of politics and the show Nereo Roco, Platini, Muhammad Ali, Ronaldo and Carlos Monzón also took part in Miná's questions.
He wrote for La República, L'Unita, Corriere de la Sera, Il Manifesto, long after his beginnings as a chronicler at the Tuttosport sports club in Turin, his hometown.
He was the man of the famous Domenica Sportiva, a fan of Torino, he toured all of Latin America making documentaries, political, social and sports.
He received all possible awards for his journalistic work.
And a day like today, he left.
He did not wait for the European spring.
Just him, who was a brilliant and perfumed flower in a journalism that does not know what winters it is headed for.