The Silent Duchess (FP Classics) - Softcover

Maraini, Dacia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155861222X ISBN 13: 9781558612228

Publisher: Feminist Press, 2000

Synopsis

Finalist for the International Man Booker Prize, winner of the Premio Campiello, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award upon its first English-language publication in the UK, and published to critical acclaim in fourteen languages, this mesmerizing historical novel by one of Italy's premier women writers is available in the United States for the first time.

The Silent Duchess is the story of Marianna Ucrìa, 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.

About this title

Review:

"The publication in America of Maraini's The Silent Duchess... is cause for rejoicing. Episodic and essentially plotless, but propelled by an inner tension, this unusual historical novel about the splendid but squalid Sicilian aristocracy of the early 18th century comes closer to belles lettres than a conventional novel." --Publishers Weekly

"[D]eftly juggles a strong feminist statement with a beautifully specific re-creation of 18th-century Sicily. . . . [A] carefully paced story of intellectual and moral growtha story thats as much a charming fairy tale as an impeccably realistic chronicle of one woman's painstaking ascension to self-expression and independence." --Kirkus

"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)

"This is a novel of the greatest vividness. It arouses intense feeling. It provokes thought. It invites the reader into a world which is very different from that in which we live, and yet immediately recognizable as true and valid. . . . It is illuminating, moving, and entrancing." --The Scotsman (Edinburgh)

"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)

"Dacia Maraini has produced a fiction of elegance and charm." --The Mail on Sunday (London)

"A thoughtful and beautifully written book." --Sunday Express (London)

From the Back Cover:

'The Silent Duchess' won the Premio Campiello, Italy's most prestigious literary prize, selling over a quarter of a million copies. The novel is also a winner of the monthly 'Independent' Award for Foreign Fiction.

'Set in eighteenth-century Italy the story of our heroine, Marianna, and of her family is a fascinating one which manages totally to overpower the reader with its narrative urgency. Maraini brilliantly conveys the mixture of luxury and squalor in which the Sicilian aristocracy lived, and with great skill, communicates every detail through the eyes and nostrils of her Silent Duchess.'
FRANCIS KING, 'Evening Standard'

'Few other novelists have so forcefully expressed the sense that the age they describe is a shaping force in the conduct of their characters. 'The Silent Duchess' has the richness of a saga, and Maraini weaves striking scenes into the narrative with an ease, both memorable and inevitable.'
JOSEPH FARRELL, 'Independent'

''The Silent Duchess' succeeds through its accretion of details. A vivid and hushed account, Maraini's portrayal of the Duchess Marianna's life is blanketed in a strange beauty, like the snow-muffled landscape of winter.'
NICCI GERRARD, 'Observer'

'Dacia Maraini is an artist of considerable power. 'The Silent Duchess' is a novel that would have delighted Nabokov. It is brimming with detail, vividly presented in a style that is abrupt, spiky, and yet luxuriant. Every page presents one with the unexpected. It arouses intense feeling, it provokes thought.'
ALLAN MASSIE, 'Scotsman'

About this edition

• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 155861222X
• ISBN 13: 9781558612228
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264