This collection of twenty-four stories by seventeen Italian women writers celebrates a high level of accomplishment that draws on a tradition of women’s literature in Italy, but also marks a new and exciting vitality in Italian fiction.
Writing of various experiences and from different regions, these women all create with an ease born of confidence in their art. They exhibit a control, an emotional detachment, that allows the deep irony of their invented world to play below the surface. They have a succinctness, a skill in limiting, that reveals more than layers of detail possibly could. These women share a talent for contriving psychological insights that surprise and touch the reader.
Authors include Anna Banti, Grazia Deledda, Paola Drigo, Natalia Ginzburg, Geda Jacolutti, Gina Lagorio, Rosetta Loy, Dacia Maraini, Milena Milani, Marina Mizzau, Giuliana Morandini, Elsa Morante, Maria Occhipinti, Anna Maria Ortese, Fabrizia Ramondino, Francesca Sanvitale, and Monica Sarsini.
