Taylor and Francis Simborowski, N: Secrets and Puzzles

Four significant Italian writers - Cesare Pavese, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg and Francesca Sanvitale - who were brought up under the shadow of fascism and war and whose work spans the second half of the twentieth century, are the focus of this study of the 'unsaid' in modern Italian narrative. During periods that are free of censorship, how do writers decide what to excise, and how far are their omissions a form of concealment? What are the relationships between biography, fiction and autobiography? Do writers influence readers, or do they inevitably reflect their readers' attitudes? In this wide-ranging, lucid and thought-provoking work, which embraces, among other topics, literary depictions of the Holocaust, Italian political guilt and trauma, fairytales, film theory and feminist writing, Nicoletta Simborowski traces the path and significance of self-censorship in post-war Italy. (Legenda Main Series, Legenda 2002)