Life, Brazen and Garish: A Tale of Three Women (Other Voices of Italy) - Softcover

Maraini, Dacia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1978839731 ISBN 13: 9781978839731

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2024

Synopsis

Three generations of women live together under the same roof. Though they are united by blood, each of the Cascadei women has a very different personality and way of expressing herself. Teenage daughter Lori scribbles impulsively in her diary, so eager to speed off on her moped that she rarely bothers with punctuation. Mother Maria, a professional translator, writes detailed and observant letters yet doesn’t see what is happening right in front of her. And grandmother Gesuina, a former stage actress, speaks into an audio recorder, giving a provocative and brutally candid performance for an imagined audience that might never listen. 
 
Life, Brazen and Garish offers a fresh take on the epistolary novel, telling the story of a family through the fragmented and disparate perspectives of daughter, mother, and grandmother. Yet even as each woman endures her private struggles with love and betrayal, youth and maturity, knowledge and ignorance, reality and illusion, the Cascadeis forge a solidarity that transcends generations. In turns heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny, this novel is a triumph of narrative voice and literary style from one of Italy’s most renowned writers.
 

Questo libro è stato tradotto grazie a un contributo del Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale italiano.
This book has been translated thanks to a contribution from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

About this title

About the Author

DACIA MARAINI is one of Italy’s most pre-eminent and beloved writers. In 1973 she founded the Teatro delle Maddalene, dedicated to works by women; she has written over thirty plays, as well as such novels as Voci (Voices) and the international bestseller La Lunga Vita di Marianna Ucrìa (The Silent Duchess).  
 
ELVIRA G DI FABIO holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where she directed the Italian program and taught literary translation. Among her many published works are translations of Dacia Maraini’s plays “The Gecko” and “Bakunin: The Lion and the Crocodile.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1978839731
• ISBN 13: 9781978839731
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 162