Viareggio Prize (Premio Viareggio / Premio Letterario Viareggio-Rèpaci)
Lies and Sorcery (New York Review Books Classics)
Set in Sicily, this novel follows a lonely narrator as she rethreads the memories of the women who precede her - grandmother, mother, and herself - and recounts a family history of secrets, desire, and betrayal through a blend of fact and invention. Its lush storytelling and layered family saga make it one of the defining debut novels of postwar Italian literature.
Work Information
A voice that moves between fact and invention gathers three generations of women into a single, expansive family saga.
Elsa Morante's debut novel tells a Sicilian family history through the voice of Elisa, a lonely narrator who folds love, jealousy, betrayal, and fantasy into a single account. The fates of three generations of women unfold alongside private memory and social injustice, bringing the power and danger of storytelling itself to the foreground.
Review Summaries
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It is praised for placing women's desires and self-deceptions at the center while exposing the chill of class and power beneath its fantastical surface. Readers and critics alike see it as a richly written, deeply layered novel with the scale of a major literary epic.
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It is described as an ambitious novel with the surface of a nineteenth-century classic, yet one that relentlessly exposes self-regard and class consciousness. Its force comes from the way it confronts women's lives without hesitation or restraint.
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Its ornate and abundant prose is seen as widening a family story set in southern Italy into something shaped by social division and insecurity. The novel's refusal to fear excess is often cited as the source of its old-fashioned, sweeping power.
Book Information
- Publisher
- NYRB Classics
- Published
- 2023-10-10
- Pages
- 800 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.78 x 4.32 x 20.24 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781681376844
- ISBN-10
- 1681376849
- Price
- 5013 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Drama/Comedy
An Italian master's magnum opus about three generations of women, now in the first-ever unabridged English translation. Winner of the 2024 Society of Authors John Florio Prize for for the best translation from Italian and the 2024 American Literary Translator Association's Italian Prose in Translation Prize Elsa Morante is one of the titans of twentieth-century literature—Natalia Ginzburg said she was the writer of her own generation that she most admired—and yet her work remains little known in the United States. Written during World War II, Morante’s celebrated first novel, Lies and Sorcery , is in the grand tradition of Stendhal, Tolstoy, and Proust, spanning the lives of three generations of wildly eccentric women. The story is set in Sicily and told by Elisa, orphaned young and raised by a “fallen woman.” For years Elisa has lived in an imaginary world of her own; now, however, her guardian has died, and the young woman feels that she must abandon her fantasy life to confront the truth of her family’s tortured and dramatic history. Elisa is a seductive, if less than reliable, spinner of stories, and the reader is drawn into a tale of secrets, intrigue, and treachery, which, as it proceeds, is increasingly revealed to be an exploration of a legacy of political and social injustice. Throughout, Morante’s elegant writing—and her drive to get at the heart of her characters’ complex relationships and all-too self-destructive behavior—holds us spellbound.
Elsa Morante (1912–1985) was an Italian novelist, poet, and translator. She was born in Rome and lived there nearly all her life. In 1941, she published her first collection of stories and married the novelist Alberto Moravia. Morante is best known for her novels Arturo’s Island and La Storia . For her work, she was awarded both the Viareggio Prize and the Strega Prize. Jenny McPhee is a translator and the author of the novels The Center of Things , No Ordinary Matter , and A Man of No Moon . For NYRB Classics she translted Curzio Malaparte’s The Kremlin Ball and Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon . She is the director for the Center of Applied Liberal Arts at New York University.
Reviews
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Lo compré para un regalo de navidad, llegó a tiempo y en buen estado. A la persona que lo regalé le encantó
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One of the best European novels of the 20th century.
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Wonderful story. It's the first time I read something from Elsa Morante and her very personal and witty style is a revelation to me. Hope to find more books of her translated in English. About the physical book: Paper feels nice, it's quite thin because the book has over 800 pages, yet the print doesn't shine through from the other side, creamy colour. I love the cover illustration as well.
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I bought this based on a positive review. I can't believe that the book I've just read was the same one. The new translation is peppered with annoying americanisms, and the story is basically a long list of unappealing men treating gullible women really badly. Yawn. Not recommended if you're looking for an enriching, uplifting, interesting read. Not, in fact, recommended at all.
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A masterpiece. Elsa Morantes writing takes my breath away.