Today I am starting a new reading project focusing on short fiction by Italian women. All of my old projects such as The Irish Quarter, Yiddish Literature, post W W I I Japanese fiction, southern USA Gothic, Classics, Modern Fiction, Early Australian Short Stories, Indian Subcontinent Stories, The Katherine Mansfield Project, Short stories of the Philippines, Austro-Hungarian Literature and others remain active. I have found new projects enrich old ones rather than replace them. I might stop reading or posting in one area for a while or wander off on tangents but I eventually come back.
Why Italian women? My first reading in this area was a short story by Natalie Ginzburg. This was from a suggestion of Linda Lappin's. I then was kindly gifted by Italica Press, a leading publisher of Italian literature and scholarship, an excellent anthology of short fiction by Italian women writers which will serve as my starting point for this new project. I admit at first I imagined encountering writers resembling Claudia Cardinelli or Gina Lollobrigida, (OK showing my age), dining in Rome's finest establishments, drinking wine in centuries old villas in the Tuscan Hills while reading exquisite stories. We will see where the stories really take us. If we wind up in a dark alley in Naples trying to deal with the Fascists or hiding our own past, it will be a very interesting ride.
Please share your experiences in this area with us.
Mel u
Mel, you are funny. This does sound like a wonderful new project for The Reading Life. Evviva!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be following this with interest, Mel!
ReplyDeleteI'll be follwoing this with interest as well. I've got that collection too, btw and just thought I should really read it. It's got some great writers in there.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward. I hope I can access the original stories in Italian as well.
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