| One of contemporary Italy's best-known writers, Dacia Maraini
has often been a figure of controversy as author and as cultural
critic. Although she is the recipient of numerous literary awards,
Maraini's work has not received the sustained critical attention
it deserves. Working and creating "dalla parte delle donne"
("on the side of women"), she has been effectively
excluded from the Italian critical canon. This volume attempts
to redress this injustice.
Maraini was born in Florence in 1936 and spent part of her
childhood in Japan. As a young child, near the end of World War
II, she was imprisoned with her family, who were anti-Fascists,
in a concentration camp in Japan. She began her career in 1962
with the novel La vacanza (The Holiday, 1966).
A committed activist, she speaks out for women through her works
and opposes the gender roles that repress women and open them
to abuse and violence. Novelist, poet, playwright, filmmaker,
journalist, and cultural critic, Maraini is the recipient of
numerous literary awards. Her most famous works include Donna
in guerra (1975; Woman at War, 1989), La lunga
vita di Marianna Ucrìa (1990; The Silent Duchess,
1992, 1998), and Voci (1994; Voices, 1996).
Featured in this volume is Maraini's own analysis of women's
writing and the dynamic of denigration that refuses to acknowledge
its value: "Reflections on the Logical and Illogical Bodies
of My Sexual Compatriots." Fourteen essays by an international
group of Italianists--utilizing a wide spectrum of interpretive
perspectives, from semiotics to psychoanalysis--treat the full
range of Maraini's works.
The Pleasure of Writing offers access to the complex pleasures
of reading Dacia Maraini and proposes her oeuvre as a concrete
response to the question of the enduring cultural values of politically
committed art.
This volume is recommended to both Italianists and feminist scholars
and students, as well as to readers concerned with the ties between
literary theory and textual analysis.
"The essays collected in this volume firmly and eloquently position
Maraini within the canon by highlighting the extraordinary range of
her work while exploring the feminist ideology informing her texts....
While these essays address and employ theoretical positions ranging
from semiotics to psychoanalysis, they remain refreshingly free of jargon
and are therefore accessible even to nonspecialists. The volume has
been attentively edited: the essays exhibit a consistency of tone often
difficult to achieve in a collection of such disparate approaches....
This collection of lucid and thoughtful essays is a 'must have' for
scholars of Maraini, as well as those interested in feminist and cultural
studies." Laura A. Salsini, Modern Fiction Studies
For the complete review, see Modern Fiction Studies 47.2 (Summer
2001): 515-17.
"This is a well-conceived, thought-provoking and informative
collection of essays on one of Italy's most original and influential
contemporary writers.... One of the many highlights of the volume is
Maraini's essay on women's writing and the bias against women's writing
on the part of literary scholars.... [T]he essays are of consistently
high quality and interest.... The Pleasure of Writing goes a
long way towards addressing this neglect [of Maraini's work] and makes
an invaluable contribution to Italian studies." Joann Cannon, Italica
For the complete review, see Italica 78 (2001): 118-19.
"This is one of the few works and certainly the first exhaustive
volume about a writer and intellectual who has marked and shaped Italian
feminism with her irreverence, intellectual acumen, intelligence, and
revisionist agenda." Graziella Parati
"This valuable work treats the full range of Maraini's production
as novelist, poet, playwright, filmmaker, journalist, and cultural critic."
AATI Newsletter
For the complete review see AATI Newsletter, Fall 2000.
"Questa bella raccolta di saggi su Dacia Maraini fa parte della
collana 'Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures.' Si tratta di un ottimo
contributo nel campo non solo degli Women's Studies ma dell'italianistica
in generale; e questo sia per l'argomento (era ora che comparisse un
tale studio sulle opere della Maraini), sia per la qualità dei
saggi, dell'apparato bibliografico e della veste editoriale. La scelta
della lingua inglese come veicolo è stata senz'altro saggia,
ma ci si può e ci si deve augurare che quest'opera possa apparire
prestoanche sugli scaffali delle librerie e delle biblioteche italiane."
Cinzia Di Giulio, Annali d'Italianistica
For the complete review, see Annali d'Italianistica 19 (2001):
435-38. For an online version, click here
and search for the title.
For another review, see Reference & Research Book
News 1 Aug. 2000.
Links
Dacia
Maraini's Home Page
Rodica Diaconescu-Blumenfeld, Vassar College, has published
a study of Gadda's Pasticciaccio and articles on Marco
Risi, Lina Wertmüller, and Gianni Amelio, and European cinema.
Ada Testaferri, York University, has edited and co-edited
works on Italian women and the cinema and has published articles
on Boccaccio and on women's issues.
1-55753-197-8
2000. Vol. 20. x, 277 pp. Cloth $29.95 PRICE REDUCED
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