Sudden blindness can make great changes in a person’s life and that’s what happened to an Italian language teacher and a novelist, Paola Peretti. She was only 14 years old when she became very short-sighted and was later diagnosed with a retinal disease after three years. This caused her to steer clear of the shadow of her condition and confront her fear of the dark.

Peretti’s fear of losing her sight inspires her to write The distance between me and the Cherry tree, a children’s novel which is a mixture of fiction and autobiography. The novel has a main character named Mafalda, who has the same problem and fear as Peretti. The book serves as her template in life that’s why every day, she makes sure that she has a blitz on her writing.

Peretti said that writing the book was tough, she shared that writing the last chapter was the most difficult. However, she said that finding solutions to every problem completed the novel in the end.

Through the book, Peretti was able to encourage children to be brave, to reach out for the stars and to live life to the fullest. Moreover, Peretti disclosed that she is happily working on her next book.