Alba De Céspedes

Ann Goldstein (Translator)

In this modern translation by acclaimed Elena Ferrante translator Ann Goldstein, Forbidden Notebook centers the inner life of a dissatisfied housewife living in postwar Rome.

Valeria Cossati never suspected how unhappy she had become with the shabby gentility of her bourgeois life—until she begins to jot down her thoughts and feelings in a little black book she keeps hidden in a closet. This new secret activity leads her to scrutinize herself and her life more closely, and she soon realizes that her individuality is being stifled by her devotion and sense of duty toward her husband, daughter, and son. As the conflicts between parents and children, husband and wife, and friends and lovers intensify, what goes on behind the Cossatis’ facade of middle-class respectability gradually comes to light, tearing the family’s fragile fabric apart. 

An exquisitely crafted portrayal of domestic life, Forbidden Notebook recognizes the universality of human aspirations.

Forbidden Notebook

"De Cespedes' work has lost none of its subversive force” —The New York Times Book Review From the author of Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Céspedes, a richly told novel she called “the story of a great love and of a crime.” As she looks back on her life, Alessandra Corteggiani recalls her youth during the rise of fascism in Italy, the resistance, and the fall of Mussolini, the lives of the women in her family and her working-class neighborhood, rigorously committed to telling “her side of the story.” Alessandra witnesses her mother, an aspiring concert pianist, suffer from the inability to escape her oppressive marriage. Later, she is sent away to live with her father's relatives in the country, in the hope she’ll finally learn to submit herself to the patriarchal system and authority. But at the farm, Alessandra grows increasingly rebellious, conscious of the unjust treatment of generations of hardworking women in her family. When she refuses the marriage proposal from a neighboring farmer, she is sent back to Rome to tend to her ailing father. In Rome, Alessandra meets Francesco, a charismatic anti-fascist professor, who ostensibly admires and supports her sense of independence and justice. But she soon comes to recognize that even as she respects Francesco and is keen to participate in his struggle to reclaim their country from fascism, this respect is unrequited, and that her own beloved husband is ensnared by patriarchal conventions when it comes to their relationship. In these pages, De Céspedes delivers a breathtakingly accurate and timeless portrayal of the complexity of the female condition against the dramatic backdrop of WWII and the partisan uprising in Italy

From the author of FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK

Her Side of the Story

Um clássico moderno redescoberto da literatura italiana, da autora que é uma das influências de Elena Ferrante. Valeria Cossati queria apenas buscar cigarros para o marido na tabacaria, mas acaba comprando ilegalmente um caderno preto — um item que não poderia ser comercializado aos domingos —, e faz dele seu diário. Estamos na Roma dos anos 1950, e Valeria leva a vida entediante de uma mulher de classe média, dividindo-se entre os papéis de mãe, esposa e funcionária de escritório. Há anos ela não ouve o próprio nome — o marido só a chama de "mamãe" —, e sua relação com os filhos é marcada por conflitos geracionais. Porém, conforme alimenta aquelas páginas proibidas, Valeria começa a notar uma profunda transformação em si mesma — cujas consequências ela ainda não sabe prever. Alba de Céspedes foi uma das grandes autoras de língua italiana do século XX, com uma obra que se destaca pela profundidade das personagens femininas. Em Caderno proibido, a autora demonstra todo seu talento ao retratar a intimidade de uma mulher comum e as mudanças da sociedade italiana no pós-guerra.

Caderno proibido

Quaderno proibito

Jhumpa Lahiri (translator)

The Forbidden Notebook

Nessuno torna indietro

Das verbotene Notizbuch

There's No Turning Back

دفترچه ممنوع

In letters to a childhood friend, the neurotic wife of an important Roman newspaper man confesses to an affair with a gifted architect.

Il rimorso

Dalla parte di lei

Una esposa ejemplar

«La conscience que j'avais de ma condition de femme m'inspirait ainsi un sentiment de faute. C'est avec honte que je découvrais sur mon corps tous les signes qui révélaient cette condition et la rendaient visible à mes propres yeux, mais aussi à ceux des autres.» 
Rome, années 1930. La jeune Alessandra grandit dans le modèle féminin imposé par la tradition patriarcale, que véhiculent sa mère - pianiste de talent prisonnière de son mariage - et son austère grand-mère. Lorsque éclate la guerre, elle entame des études et rencontre Francesco, un professeur antifasciste. Pensant trouver un homme capable de voir en elle une égale, elle l'épouse. L'espoir d'Alessandra est immense, et sa déception sera à la mesure de ses attentes. Fresque intime d'une grande modernité parue en 1949, Elles résonne comme un cri d'affranchissement du deuxième sexe dans un monde dominé par les hommes.

Juliette Bertrand
Marc Lesage

Elles 

Rom, 1939. Alessandra wächst in bescheidenen Verhältnissen auf. Ihre Mutter – ein außergewöhnliches Klaviertalent – wird vom Ehemann ständig in ihre Schranken verwiesen, und so wird Alessandra früh eingebläut, welche Rolle für Frauen vorgesehen ist. Nach dem plötzlichen Tod der Mutter wird sie vom Vater in ein Dorf in den Abruzzen geschickt, wo sie lernen soll, sich zu fügen. Doch Alessandra ist ein freier Geist, sie politisiert sich und fordert nichts weniger als die Gleichberechtigung von Mann und Frau. Als sie zurück in Rom den antifaschistischen Philosophen Francesco kennenlernt, scheint sie endlich am richtigen Ort angelangt zu sein. Doch es wird ihr viel zu spät klar, was ihr für die ersehnte Freiheit abverlangt werden wird. Dieser radikal »aus ihrer Sicht« erzählte Roman ist die Geschichte einer großen Liebe und eines Verbrechens. In einem von Faschismus und dem Patriarchat beherrschten Italien entspinnt sich das intime und hochpolitische Schicksal einer Frau, die das Unmögliche möglich macht: Resignation in Rebellion zu verwandeln.

Roman | Das hochpolitische Schicksal einer Frau im von Faschismus und Patriarchat beherrschten Italien | Das perfekte Muttertagsgeschenk

Aus ihrer Sicht

یک دسته گل بنفشه

Roman i form af brevvekslinger mellem forskellige personer

عذاب وجدان

Romanzi

Tells the story of a series of drug-related events that happen to diverse chanracters one night in Paris.

Alba De Céspedes

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