ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alba de Céspedes (1911–1997) was a bestselling Italian-Cuban feminist writer greatly influenced by the cultural developments that led to and resulted from World War II. In 1935, she was jailed for her anti-fascist activities in Italy. Two of her novels were also banned—Nessuno Torna Indietro (1938) and La Fuga (1940). In 1943, she was again imprisoned for her assistance with Radio Partigiana in Bari, where she was a resistance radio personality known as Clorinda. After the war, she moved to Paris, where she lived until her death in 1997. A new English translation of her 1952 novel Forbidden Notebook was published by Astra House in 2023 to great acclaim.