Dacia Maraini
A Novel
Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize. Set in Sicily in the early eighteenth-century, the novel tells the story of Marianna, the daughter of an aristocratic family and the victim of a mysterious childhood trauma that has left her deaf and mute, trapped in a world of silence. In luminous language that conveys both the keen visual sight and the deep human insight possessed by her remarkable main character, Dacia Maraini captures the splendor and the corruption of Marianna’s world and the strength of her unbreakable spirit.
“Maraini brilliantly conveys the mixture of luxury and squalor in which the Sicilian aristocracy lived. . . . The Silent Duchess manages totally to overpower the reader with its narrative urgency. . . . Since she won the Prix Formentor in 1963, Dacia Maraini has produced nothing finer than this.”
—Evening Standard, London
“The Silent Duchess has a subtlety of perception, a delicacy in probing emotions and above all, an elusive feel for history itself. . . . The narrative has the richness of a saga. . . . This history of a woman’s quest for dignity is an astonishing achievement.”
—The Independent, London
eISBN: 9781558617834 | ISBN: 9781558612228
Riverbend
Girl Blog from Iraq
In her riveting web blog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation. In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
“Anyone who cares about the war in Iraq must read this book.”
—Susan Sarandon
“Feisty and learned: first-rate reading for any American who suspects that Fox News may not be telling the whole story.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Riverbend’s commentary [is] passionate, frustrated, sarcastic and sometimes hopeful. . . . It offers quick takes on events as they occur, from a perspective too often overlooked, ignored or suppressed.”
—Publishers Weekly
eISBN: 9781558616165 | ISBN: 9781558614895
Muriel Rukeyser
A young reporter in 1936, Muriel Rukeyser traveled to Barcelona to witness the first days of the Spanish Civil War. She turned this experience into an autobiographical novel so forward thinking for its time that it was never published. Recently discovered in her archive, this lyrical work charts her political and sexual awakening as she witnesses the popular front resistance to the fascist coup and falls in love with a German political exile who joins the first international brigade.
“At first Savage Coast is a train-of-fools comedy; later, it’s a cross-cultural love story Hemingway would have envied for its suddenness. The ambitious and passionate young Rukeyser wanted to record everything she witnessed in Spain.”
—New York Times Book Review
“What a treasure! Muriel Rukeyser takes us back to those crucial days when Spain became the first international battleground against fascism and hope for democracy, to tell a powerful story of personal, sexual, and political awakening. Savage Coast is bound to be an instant classic.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
eISBN: 9781558618213 | ISBN: 9781558618206
Monika Zgustova
The Duchess of Alba, known as Goya’s muse, recalls the passions of youth on her deathbed in the royal court of eighteenth-century Madrid. A young woman defies the protocols of her arranged marriage and pursues love—and the life of a published writer—until her readers condemn her as a danger to society in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nina Berberova escapes persecution during the Russian Revolution and flees to Paris, where the intelligentsia naively covet the promise of a Soviet Union. These three women attempt to find passion and intimacy in worlds that rarely accommodate female desire. Goya’s Glass is an unforgettable novel of guilty pleasures coursing through history.
“Monika Zgustova’s concerns are close to my own: the fate of the individual in the hands of totalitarianism. She is an outstanding writer, whose fiction invokes the politics and culture of people throughout history.”
—Vaclav Havel
“Three centuries, three solitudes, three unbridled passions, three indomitable women—Monika Zgustova is a born storyteller. Goya’s Glass is a magnificent achievement.”
—Josef Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls
eISBN: 9781558617988 | ISBN: 9781558617971