A place to live : and other selected essays of Natalia Ginzburg

Format:

Book

Title:

A place to live : and other selected essays of Natalia Ginzburg

Uniform Title:

Essays. English. Selections

Author:

Ginzburg, Natalia.

ISBN:

9781583224748

Edition:

A Seven Stories Press 1st ed.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

237 pages ; 22 cm

Contents:

From Le piccole virtú, 1963 -- Human relations -- Winter in the Abruzzi -- My craft -- The son of man -- Portrait of a friend -- From Mai devi domandarmi, 1970 -- Laziness -- My psychoanalysis -- The white mustache -- The great lady -- A Place to live -- Clueless travelers -- The baby who saw bears -- Portrait of a writer -- Film -- Universal compassion -- From Vita immaginaria, 1974 -- Such is Rome -- No fairies, no wizards -- An invisible government -- Summer -- Misery in the beautiful, horrible city -- Fantasy life -- Selections from Serena Cruz o la vera giustizia, 1990 -- Serena Cruz, or The meaning of true justice.

Personal Subject:

Ginzburg, Natalia-Translations into English.

Ginzburg, Natalia

Subject(s):

Italian essays.

Genre:

Translations

Added Author:

Schwartz, Lynne Sharon

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	854.912 Ginzburg 2002	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Translated and Afterword by Lynne Sharon Schwartz One of the greatest twentieth-century voices of Italian literature, long wrongly overshadowed by her male counterparts, Natalia Ginzburg has never been reluctant to take unpopular or controversial positions. Known for the forthrightness and clarity of her vision, in these autobiographical essays she explores being a writer, a mother, and being displaced during WWII through travel pieces, mood pieces, stories picked from newspapers and meditations on her own sense of self. Together, they are a unique and inspired collection.

Author Notes

NATALIA GINZBURG (1916-91) is recognized as one of the foremost Italian writers of the twentieth century, and one of the most eloquent and incisive commentators on postwar Italy. Her works include novels, stories, essays, plays, and a biography of Alessandro Manzoni.
LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ is the author of fourteen works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as the widely acclaimed memoir, Ruined by Reading. Her first novel, Rough Strife (1981), was shortlisted for a National Book Award and a PEN/Hemingway First Novel Award, and her Leaving Brooklyn (1989) was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. She won the 1991 PEN Renato Pogglioli Award for her translation from the Italian of Smoke Over Birkenau, by Liana Millu. Schwartz is a native and current New Yorker.

Reviews (1)

Booklist Review

Italian novelist, dramatist, and essayist Natalia Ginzburg (1916^-90) is revered worldwide for the lucidity of her style, the keenness of her perceptions, and the compassion implicit in her humanitarianism. Few of her pristine and powerful personal essays have been available in English, an oversight esteemed writer Lynne Sharon Schwartz rectifies in her graceful, seemingly transparent translations. Schwartz prefaces the collection with a brisk but moving look at Ginzburg's life--her antifascist family; her dissident husband's death in 1944 after being imprisoned by the fascists, which left Ginzburg with three young children; and her devotion to her craft--thus setting the context for Ginzburg's bracing essays about writing, family, home, war, exile, loss, and, in such startlingly incisive musings as "Fantasy Life," the nature of the mind and its evolution over time. Ginzburg draws her readers into her deceptively charming essays with cascades of alluring, everyday detail, then stealthily broaches moral questions of great weight and complexity. Wryly witty, acutely observant, and unfailingly valiant, Ginzburg is a revelation, a spur, and a joy. --Donna Seaman