1st Edition

Secrets and Puzzles Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing

By Nicoletta Simborowski Copyright 2003

    Four major Italian writers raised in the shadow of fascism - Cesare Pavese, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg and Francesca Sanvitale - are the focus of this examination of the 'unsaid' in modern Italian narrative. Post-war and free of official censorship, these writers nonetheless show signs of constraint and omission in their work. Are the gaps a form of concealment? In this lucid and wide-ranging study, which embraces key areas of modern literary investigation - Holocaust writing, political guilt, autobiography, feminism and film theory - the author addresses the question of self-censorship and traces its course in contemporary Italian writing.

    Preface 1 Theoretical Approaches to the Unsaid and Cultural Background 2 ‘Il ritegno’: Writing and Restraint in Primo Levi 3 Cesare Pavese and the Need to Confess: Politics in Pavese’s Key Works 4 Natalia Ginzburgs Lessico famigliare 5 Silence and Women’s Writing 6 The Einaudi Publishing House, Public Attitudes and the Perception of Truth; Conclusion

    Biography

    Nicoletta Simborowski