Before his birth, omens foretold that Alexander, son of the warrior-king Philip of Macedonia, was destined for greatness. From boyhood, the prince was trained by the finest scholars and mightiest sol
"There is only one pleasure, that of being alive. All the rest is misery," wrote Cesare Pavese, whose short, intense life spanned the ordeals of fascism and World War II to witness t
Greatly influenced by writers ranging from Dickens and Proust to Woolf and Colette, Anna Banti was a prominent figure on the Italian literary scene from the 1940s until her death in 1985. The five tal
Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous An
A young woman trapped in a provincial town dreams of being rescued by love. But the Marchesa Colombi puts a twist on that old plot in her story of Denza Dellara, a clumsy Cinderella too big for her h
Writer Italo Svevo had many things in common with other writers: a long struggle for recognition; a friendship with a noteworthy author (in Svevo's case, James Joyce); and a long list of neuroses. His
A collection of stories by the Italian author revolves around idealistic young characters whose search for a romantic ideal usually ends in dissapointment.
A vividly imagined retelling of Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas is told through the voice of a last-minute conscript, who is eventually adopted by a tribe of Indians and helps them fight
"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal and in confronting the unbearable sadness of it closes the account and does not surrender to the void…Un
This collection includes stories by established Italian literary figures such as Italo Calvino and Primo Levi as well as a new generation of writers. Aspects of Sicilian and Italian life are explored
From one of the great literary classics of the world — a carefully chosen selection of 20 stories told by ten young people who have retreated to the countryside to escape the plague raging in 14th-cen
Evoking in vivid detail the literary world in Rome at the turn of the century. Her Husband tells the story of Silvia Roncella, a talented young female writer, and her husband Giustino Boggiolo. The no
Although never named as such, the landscape of Sanremo was a constant visual source for Calvino's fiction. In its recognizable pattern of sea-city-hills, it appears in sixteen works written over a per
For centuries, the stereotypical image of the voluptuous Italian woman has functioned as an object of desire for Western man: from sixteenth-century paintings of Venetian courtesans who modeled for th
"This letter is your death sentence. To avenge what you have done you will die." But what has Manno the pharmacist done? Nothing that he can think of. He takes the letter for a joke. The next day he
