Revising the Italian canon

Revising the Italian canon via social media

The @nytimesbookreview is connecting new readers to Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza:

Dalia Oggero, who edited Sapienza’s work for Einaudi, said that Italy in the 1970s wasn’t ready for her unconventional writing, baroque and rational at the same time — or her themes. “Her brand of feminism was ahead of times,” Oggero said. “A sentence like ‘Watch out, because at this rate when women realize how you leftist men smile smugly and paternalistically at what they say, their vengeance will be awesome’ seems like it was written today, not in the past.”

Sapienza’s writing was prescient in other ways too, as if she foresaw her belated recognition.

One dies to leave the best part of yourself to those who can read you.                              - Goliarda Sapienza




The new English translation of Sapienza's Appuntamento a Positano was released on May 11.(Find it on Amazon)




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