Women Writers
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Italian Literature in Translation. Volume iii. Women Writers. Edited by Loredana Lipperini. Italian Cultural Institute in London. A selection of extracts from novels by Italian contemporary women writers never previously published in English. 0 pages IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 1 Women Writers IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 2 Italian Literature in Translation. Volume iii. Women Writers. Edited by Loredana Lipperini. Italian Cultural Institutes in London, Edinburgh, Dublin IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 4 Contents 07 — page 197 Carmen Pellegrino, Earth is Falling translated by Jennifer Higgins 08 — page 219 Letizia Pezzali, Loyal Foreword, by Loredana Lipperini translated by Minna Zallman Proctor — page 7 09 — page 243 01 — page 9 Domitilla Pirro, Kilography Giulia Caminito, A Day Will Come translated by Johanna Bishop translated by Ann Goldstein 10 — page 267 02 — page 39 Laura Pugno, The Half-Wooded Island Eleonora C. Caruso, Everything’s Closed Except the Sky translated by Ann Goldstein translated by Johanna Bishop 11 — page 289 03 — page 69 Evelina Santangelo, From Another World Teresa Ciabatti, Daddy’s Girl translated by Minna Zallman Proctor translated by Anne Milano Appel 12 — page 321 04 — page 99 Carola Susani, The First Life of Italo Orlando Sara Gamberini, The Majesty of Abandonment translated by Katherine Gregor translated by Katherine Gregor Women Writers 05 — page 123 — page 351 Antonella Lattanzi, Dark Story translated by Emma Mandley Rights — page 365 06 — page 155 Chiara Palazzolo, Don’t Kill Me Editor, Translators and Book designer translated by Frederika Randall — page 369 IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 6 In Italy we keep hearing that this is the year of female writers, ever since 2017. In fact, after a never confessed underestimation that recaptures and unfortunately actualises Grace Paley’s old statement “we read the books written by our male colleagues, who do not usually return the courtesy”, Italian female writers are at long last considered “literary” and not simply “sentimental”. They win prizes: three of the last four Campiello prizes were awarded to Simona Vinci, Donatella Di Pietrantonio and Rosella Postorino. Even the Strega Prize 2018 was won by Helena Janeczek after over a decade of male victories. Nonetheless, female writers keep doing what they have always done, namely narrating reality in a courageous way, often overcoming the taboo of gender. The female authors proposed in this short selection, albeit an incomplete one, are all profoundly embedded in the world surrounding them, despite their different ages, provenance, and interests. They either retrieve and analyse it through the lens of history – great History with a capital H or the tiny history of hamlets – or dissolve it lyrically in visionary narrations that can concern love, death, or both, the family as a cradle of horrors or as a suffocating nest, the difficulty of overcoming existential or generational wounds, and the mysterious ways of desire. They also reinvent styles, without fearing ghosts or those who return from death in any case, whether literally or literarily. Whichever path they choose, they always do so fearlessly. Loredana Lipperini Author, journalist and radio host IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 8 Giulia Caminito 01 A Day Will Come 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:05 Pagina 10 Giulia Caminito 01 A Day Will Come * 1. Close Your Eyes Luigi Ceresa was one of the bakers in the town and had a family dogged by misfortune: people said that the crows ate at the table with them. His sons and daughters died, one after the other, like butterflies at night. He tried to keep them all together in the small house above the shop, which faced the spiazzo, the main square of the town, where the tavern was and the public weigh station, and in the past the large population of the countryside and the few inhabitants of the village had come to stock up on loaves of bread and biscotti. That bakery had belonged to his uncle Raffaele and, before that, to his grandfather Carlo, while his father, Giuseppe, had stayed clear of it. No one ever discovered how he had become translated by 10 37 Ann Goldstein pages IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:06 Pagina 12 lame, but everyone knew that the police were always looking color of a dry wheat ear, those eyes, whose gray was like the bot- for him, and it was said that he preferred coal to bread. tom of a metal tub, and that pale white glistening skin — that Luigi hadn’t been too happy to inherit the shop, since he nothing had to do with anything, out of place like flowers in a wasn’t much good at daily gossip or morning greetings, and was stable. in fact famous for his thick, curly eyebrows, his belly bloated But since Nicola was born, she’d barely been able to see, and with air and wine, and his weasel-like face. But he had hands his shadow had been pointed out to her as that of a son, one of that were good for kneading, with a broad palm and a secure many, among the dead at birth, the dead from mishaps, the dead grip, he spun the dough as if it were made of clouds, and he from illness; she had been told that he was healthy and from coughed flour before going to bed: he had it in his body. that day she went along with it. Ever since his uncle Raffaele died, his son Antonio had been Even though to her he didn’t really seem healthy, being inca- his only helper in the shop, and day by day the bakery seemed pable of the simplest activities, useless in the house and useless closer to ruin; the work was less, the people were angrier. in the shop, and it was discovered that he learned strange Luigi was coarse and rough like a crust of bread, as hardy as things, like letters and words. rye. Many found him unbearable, just as many as he didn’t like Nicola was scared of everything, from horses’ hooves to the himself. Carnival firecrackers, from the high heels of wealthy ladies to First of all — she who received the least love — was Violante, the hands of his father; the slightest thing could make him run his wife, a woman who had learned to live on childbirth, like a away. brood mare kept tied up in the field alone, and in the dark, ever For Luigi that was his cross, to have a useless son. At a month since she had begun to go blind, and cooking had become a mat- old, he had seemed to him so smooth and clean, perfect, come ter of smells and tastes. into the world to be handsome and adored, the young king of She cut her fingers, banged into corners, forgot to open the the common people, but over time he had turned out to be windows, dropped vases, stools, pots, stirred up fires already pathetic and ridiculous, constantly drooping in the heat, always out, but she had trouble asking her children for help, partly looking for shade, playing only with pieces of paper, notebooks, because, since the older girl had left and Adelaide had gotten books he got at school, lent by the priest, Don Agostino. sick, too, Violante had begun to hate them all. Because of those inclinations Violante and Luigi had soon The one who troubled her most was Nicola, a silent, almost become convinced that there would be no better thing for him transparent child: she never heard him coming, and couldn’t than to become, in turn, a priest. tell when he was in the room; ghostlike, he could appear and Violante, the religious member of the household, envisioned disappear. the possibility that he would be protected and educated, If she had seen him, maybe Violante would have understood becoming the saint of Serra, the handsomest saint ever seen in — would have been suspicious of that fine dirty-blond hair, the all the Marche, who as a man would perform miracles. 12 13 Giulia Caminito A Day Will Come IMPAGINATO INTERNO.qxd:WOMEN WRITERS 24/04/20 15:06 Pagina 14 Luigi, who, in the family tradition, had never been a great cowherds who with their pitchforks would drive out every lover of the clergy, saw a way of getting rid of him, after the mis- demon? There was less and less money, and he needed more take of having kept him from the start, by sending him off to his and more incense. kind, men who didn’t put on pants to go to work but tunics in Don Agostino was a man with blue eyes and a tall frame, his which to pray and hide. shadow towered like a poplar, and his fingers were clean, that was Don Agostino, evidently eager to help the child, whom he enough to make him different: having the fingers of a gentleman. considered to be misunderstood, had declared that in time he The priest had made the sign of the cross slowly and said For- would be willing to lead him to the faith. give her when Signora Tabarrini, the wife of one of the many I would welcome him happily into my flock, he said one day shoemakers in the town, had, at the end of Mass the Sunday in the Ceresa house, while Violante with an unsteady hand before, raised her voice.