Secrets and Puzzles
Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing

Nicoletta Simborowski

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Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

1 June 2003  •  188pp

ISBN: 1-900755-74-2 (paperback)  •  RRP £75, $99, €85

ItalianLife-Writing

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.

Nicoletta Simborowski is Lecturer in Italian at Hertford College and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Reviews:

  • ‘Simborowski's book provides a novel, interpretative angle for some of the most studied authors of 20th century Italian literature, inviting a reading which overcomes the limitations of the said by engaging the reader in an operation of 'voicing the silence.' The book is clearly written and Simborowski's positions convincingly argued.’ — Nicoletta Di Ciolla McGowan, Forum Italicum 38/1, 2004, 267-9
  • ‘This book throws new light on a crucial period of Italian culture. In the analysis of silence and the unsaid it provides a key for interpretation, which works well (although not infallibly), and which highlights fundamental issues in Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth century.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 100.3, 7 July 2005, 843-44 (full text online)
  • ‘Secrets and Puzzles foregrounds and consolidates an important interpretative issue, offering a new perspective on mainstream authors and a new critical context in which to view other writers of the post-war period. An impressive contribution to the study, at undergraduate level and beyond, of contemporary Italian literature.’ — Jennifer Burns, Italian Studies 60.1, 2005, 111-12

Bibliography entry:

Simborowski, Nicoletta, Secrets and Puzzles: Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing (Legenda, 2003)

First footnote reference: 35 Nicoletta Simborowski, Secrets and Puzzles: Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing (Legenda, 2003), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Simborowski, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Simborowski, Nicoletta. 2003. Secrets and Puzzles: Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Simborowski 2003: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Simborowski 2003: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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