Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
The title means ‘the viceroys’, because the Spanish were ruling in Italy, and this is the story of a family called Uzeda di Francalancia who lived in Catania in the 19th century. It is a sharp and cruel view of the family. They are all horrible people but very realistic. This is a big strong novel.
I Vicerè.
Federico De Roberto was Sicilian and he lived between 1861 and 1927. Another non-Catholic writer: he was against the church as a power. He wrote many books but this is my favourite. The title means ‘the viceroys’, because the Spanish were ruling in Italy and this is the story of a family called Uzeda di Francalancia. It is a sharp and cruel view of the family and they are all horrible people but very realistic. His analysis of this society is in a way cruel but realistic. This is a big strong novel. He is sincerely interested in the destiny of women. But never sentimental and never contemptous. He understands how society is organised and feels pity for how the women were treated in that society. Even though he portrays also egoistic and violent women characters, some of them were victims and he understood that, which was unusual for a man writing at that time.
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Dacia Maraini was born in Florence. Her Sicilian mother came from the old Alliata family from Salaparuta and her half-English father was a famous ethnologist. After a difficult childhood she moved to Rome, where she continued her studies and did a variety of jobs to make ends meet. Together with several other young people, she founded a literary magazine called Tempo di Letteratura, published by Pironti in Naples, and began contributing to magazines, including Nuovi Argomenti and Mondo. During the 60s she published her first novels and also began to turn her attention to the theatre. Together with a group of writers, she founded the Teatro del Porcospino, a theatre devoted exclusively to staging new Italian works by the likes of Parise, Gadda, Tornabuoni and Moravia. In 1973 she contributed to the foundation of the Teatro della Maddalena, run solely by women. Five years later, this theatre put on her play Dialogo di una Prostituta Con un suo Cliente (Dialogue of a Prostitute and her Client), which was translated into English and French and staged in 12 different countries.
