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Book Cover for: A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg, Natalia Ginzburg

A Place to Live: And Other Selected Essays of Natalia Ginzburg

Natalia Ginzburg

Arguably one of Italy's greatest contemporary writers, Natalia Ginzburg has been best known in America as a writer's writer, quiet beloved of her fellow wordsmiths. This collection of personal essays chosen by the eminent American writer Lynne Sharon Schwartz from four of Ginzburg's books written over the course of Ginzburg's lifetime was a many-years long project for Schwartz. These essays are deeply felt, but also disarmingly accessible. Full of self-doubt and searing insight, Ginzburg is merciless in her attempts to describe herself and her world--and yet paradoxically, her self-deprecating remarks reveal her deeper confidence in her own eye and writing ability, as well as the weight and nuance of her exploration of the conflict between humane values and bureaucratic rigidity.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Seven Stories Press
  • Publish Date: May 7th, 2002
  • Pages: 240
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.54in - 5.81in - 0.84in - 0.70lb
  • EAN: 9781583224748
  • Categories: EssaysEuropean - GeneralWomen

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About the Author

NATALIA GINZBURG (1916-91) is recognized as one of the foremost Italian writers of the twentieth century, and one of the most eloquent and incisive commentators on postwar Italy. Her works include novels, stories, essays, plays, and a biography of Alessandro Manzoni.
LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ is the author of fourteen works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as the widely acclaimed memoir, Ruined by Reading. Her first novel, Rough Strife (1981), was shortlisted for a National Book Award and a PEN/Hemingway First Novel Award, and her Leaving Brooklyn (1989) was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. She won the 1991 PEN Renato Pogglioli Award for her translation from the Italian of Smoke Over Birkenau, by Liana Millu. Schwartz is a native and current New Yorker.

More books by Natalia Ginzburg

Book Cover for: The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Family Lexicon, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Happiness, as Such, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: All Our Yesterdays, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Little Virtues, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: The Road to the City, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Valentino and Sagittarius, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: The Little Virtues: Essays, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Voices in the Evening, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: The City and the House, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Family and Borghesia, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: The Complete Short Stories of Natalia Ginzburg, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Valentino, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Las Pequenas Virtudes, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: A Light for Fools, Natalia Ginzburg
Book Cover for: Todos Nuestros Ayeres / All Our Yesterdays, Natalia Ginzburg

Praise for this book

"Ginzburg draws her readers into her deceptively charming essays with cascades of alluring, everyday detail, then stealthily broaches moral questions of great weight and complexity. Wryly witty, acutely observant, and unfailingly valiant, Ginzburg is a revelation, a spur, and a joy." -Booklist

"There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg's prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish and re-read." -Phillip Lopate

"A glowing light of modern Italian literature ... Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase ... As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart." -New York Times

"Natalia Ginzburg comes to us with absolute clarity amid the veils of time and language." -Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy

"Clear, honest, quietly strong ... Ginzburg compels us to examine the smallest and largest aspects of our lives in a way that is inspiring and exhilarating ... Carefully chosen and beautifully translated by the American writer Lynne Sharon Schwartz." -Sian Williams, Times Literary Supplement

"Clarity, precision and wit mark the work of Natalia Ginzburg." -The New York Times Book Review