1st Edition

Speculative Identities Contemporary Italian Women's Narrative

By Rita Wilson Copyright 2000

    Since the early 1980s, the novel has been deemed by many Italian women writers to be the most apt vehicle for creating positive images of the future of women. The novel becomes the space for confession, while at the same time allowing greater expressive freedom. There is no longer one voice for the "feminine role" and, by creating heroines who are also intellectuals, these authors offer their readers models of alternative versions of self. This study is a partial inventory of the new women's narrative and aims to provide a broad literary framework through which both the general reader and the student can appreciate the characteristics and innovations of contemporary Italian women's fiction. The writers chosen for this study (Ginerva Bompiani, Edith Bruck, Paola Capriolo, Francesca Duranti, Rosetta Loy, Giuliana Morandini, Marta Morazzoni, Anna Maria Ortese, Sandra Petrignanni, Fabrizia Ramondino, Elisabetta Rasy and Francesca Sanvitale) have achieved both critical acclaim and public recognition and their texts show the richness of voices, topics and structures in Italian women's writing today.

    Preface, Introduction, From Mythic Revisionism to the Limits of Realism: Anna Maria Ortese and Paola Capriolo, Searching for Reality: Francesca Sanvitale, Time and Remembrance: Rosetta Loy, Personal Histories: Fabrizia Ramondino, Contradictory Cultures: Edith Bruck and Giuliana Morandini, The Split Self or Female Creativity: Francesca Duranti, Seductive Specularities: Marta Morazzoni and Sandra Petrignani, Theory and Fictional Praxis: Elisabetta Rasy and Ginevra Bompiani, Bibliography, Index

    Biography

    Rita Wilson