The Church of Solitude

The Church of Solitude PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791488187
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Church of Solitude tells the story of Maria Concezione, a young Sardinian seamstress living with breast cancer at the cusp of the twentieth century. Overwhelmed by the shame of her diagnosis, she decides that no one can know what has happened to her, but the heavy burden of this secrecy changes her life in dramatic ways and almost causes the destruction of several people in her life. This surprising novel paints the portrait of a woman facing the unknown with courage, faith, and self-reliance, and is the last and most autobiographical work of Grazia Deledda, who died of breast cancer in 1936, shortly after its publication. An afterword by the translator offers additional information on the author and examines the social and historical environment of that time.

The Church of Solitude

The Church of Solitude PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791488187
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Church of Solitude tells the story of Maria Concezione, a young Sardinian seamstress living with breast cancer at the cusp of the twentieth century. Overwhelmed by the shame of her diagnosis, she decides that no one can know what has happened to her, but the heavy burden of this secrecy changes her life in dramatic ways and almost causes the destruction of several people in her life. This surprising novel paints the portrait of a woman facing the unknown with courage, faith, and self-reliance, and is the last and most autobiographical work of Grazia Deledda, who died of breast cancer in 1936, shortly after its publication. An afterword by the translator offers additional information on the author and examines the social and historical environment of that time.

After the Divorce

After the Divorce PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 9780810112490
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 1926 Nobel Prize in Literature In this tragic novel set in the author's native Sardinia, Constantino Ledda has been convicted and sentenced for the murder of his cruel uncle. Though innocent of the crime, he accepts the verdict as punishment for marrying Giovanna Era through a civil ceremony rather than an expensive church wedding. When Constantino is taken away, Giovanna has no way to provide for herself or family, and out of desperation divorces her husband and marries a wealthy but brutish landowner. When the real killer confesses and Constantino is released, he and Giovanna begin a forbidden and ultimately destructive affair.

Cosima

Cosima PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780934977067
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Cosima" tells the story of an aspiring writer growing up in Nuoro, Sardinia during the last decades of the nineteenth century when formal education for women was rare and literary careers unheard-of. Based on Deledda's own life, the work describes a young woman's struggle against the dismay and disapproval of her family and friends at her creative ambitions. Yet it also reads like a charming fable with details of family life, rural traditions and wild bandits, and it is as much a novel of memory as of character or action. Deledda's characters are poor country folk driven by some predetermined force. Their loves are tragic, their lives as hard and as rigidly controlled as nature itself in the hills of Sardinia. Deledda creates memorable figures who play out their lives against this backdrop of mountains and bare plains, sheepfolds and vineyards. Shimmering in the distance is the sea and escape - for a few - to the Continent or America. In 1926 Grazia Deledda became the second woman and the second Italian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She wrote thirty-three novels, including "Reeds in the Wind," and many books of short stories, almost all set on Sardinia. Her work has become well known to English-speaking readers through Martha King's translations for Italica Press.

Reeds in the Wind

Reeds in the Wind PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher: Italica Pr
ISBN: 9780934977630
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
The rugged landscape of Baronia on Sardinia sets the scene for this novel of crime, guilt and retribution. This novel presents the story of the Pintor sisters - from a family of noble landowners now in decline - their nephew Giacinto, and their servant Efix, who is trying to make up for a mysterious sin committed many years before. Around, below, and inside them the raging Mediterranean storms, the jagged mountains, the murmuring forests, and the gushing springs form a Greek chorus of witness to the tragic drama of this unforgiving land. Deledda tells her story with her characteristic love of the natural landscape and fascination with the folk culture of the island, with details about the famous religious festivals held in mountain encampments and the lore of the "dark beings who populate the Sardinian night, the fairies who live in rocks and caves, and the sprites with seven red caps who bother sleep." Introduction by the Sardinian ethnographer, Dolores Turchi.

A Self-made Woman

A Self-made Woman PDF Author: Carolyn Balducci
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
A biography of a Sardinian woman who determinedly rose above the restrictions of her environment to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926.

Elias Portolu

Elias Portolu PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 9780810112513
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 1926 Novel Prize for Literature After serving time in mainland Italy for a minor theft, Elias Portolu returns home to Nuoro, in rural Sardinia. Lonely and vulnerable after his prison exile, he falls in love with his brother's fiancée. But he finds himself trapped by social and religious strictures, his passion and guilt winding into a spiral of anguish and paralyzing indecision. For guidance he turns first to the village priest, who advises him to resist temptation; then he turns to the pagan "father of the woods," who recognizes the weakness of human will and urges him to declare his love before it is too late.

Ashes

Ashes PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Mother

The Mother PDF Author: Grazia Deledda
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Sweetest Dream

The Sweetest Dream PDF Author: Doris Lessing
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061760331
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 511

Get Book Here

Book Description
“[Lessing] is a pro, writing at the top of her powers, realistically, passionately, accessibly…. a stirring novel”—San Francisco Chronicle Frances Lennox stands at her stove, bringing another feast to readiness before ladling it out to the youthful crew assembled around her hospitable table—her two sons and their friends, girlfriends, ex-friends and new friends fresh off the street. It’s London in the 1960s and everything is being challenged and changed. But what is being tolerated? Comrade Johnny delivers political tirades, then laps up the adolescent adulation before disappearing into the night to evade the clutches of his responsibilities. Johnny’s mother funds all but finds she can embrace only one lost little girl—Sylvia, who leaves for a South African village dying of AIDS. These are the people dreaming the Sixties into being and who, on the morning after, woke to find they were the ones taxed with cleaning up and making good.

A Very Italian Christmas

A Very Italian Christmas PDF Author: Giovanni Boccaccio
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931665
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Get Book Here

Book Description
Classic and contemporary Christmas stories by great writers from Boccaccio to Strega Prize winner Anna Maria Ortese to Nobel laureate Grazia Deledda. The third in the very popular Very Christmas series, this volume brings together the best Italian Christmas stories of all time in a vibrant collection featuring classic tales and contemporary works. With writing that dates from the Renaissance to the present day, from Boccaccio to Pirandello, as well as Anna Maria Ortese, Natalia Ginzburg, and Grazia Deledda, these literary gems are filled with ancient churches, trains whistling through the countryside, steaming tureens, plates piled high with pasta, High Mass, dashed hopes, golden crucifixes, flowing wine, shimmering gifts, and plenty of style. Like everything the Italians do, this is Christmas with its very own verve and flair, the perfect literary complement to a Buon Natale italiano. Includes stories by: Luigi Pirandello ·• Camillo Boito • Matilde Serao • Anna Maria Ortese • Andrea De Carlo • Grazia Deledda • Giovanni Verga • Giovanni Boccaccio • Natalia Ginzburg