Women of Messina FIRST EDITION
- Hardcover
- New York: New Directions, 1973
New York: New Directions, 1973. First American Edition, First English Translation. Hardcover. Very good/very good. First American Edition, First English Translation. Hardcover. 8 1/4" X 5 1/2". 307pp. Book presents nicely with unclipped dust jacket wrapped in protective archival sleeve. Toning, rubbing, and shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of jacket. Creasing to rear of jacket. Mild creasing to inside flaps. Bound in beige cloth over boards with spine lettered in black. Dust-spotting to text block. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is firm, square, and sound.
ABOUT THIS BOOK:
An early version of Elio Vittorini's Women of Messina was published in Italian in 1950 and by the author's request, never reprinted. After considerable restructuring and rewriting, a second, definitive edition was brought out fourteen years later; it is this novel-Vittorini's last-which in now appearing for the first time in English translation.
Readers familiar with Vittorini's work will find Women of Messina remarkably suggestive in both spirit and content of his memorable In Sicily (1937). Once more, the theme is the search for certainty in the face of massive apathy and hopelessness. Consciously evoking Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Vittorini recounts the attempt of metaphorically"shipwrecked" group of men and women-most of them, like him, natives of Sicily-to construct a new life on the site of a devastated village in postwar Italy. A lyrical work of epic scope-termed a "choral narrative" by the novelist Italo Calvino-Women of Messina bears witness to the human will to survive with dignity.
ABOUT THIS BOOK:
An early version of Elio Vittorini's Women of Messina was published in Italian in 1950 and by the author's request, never reprinted. After considerable restructuring and rewriting, a second, definitive edition was brought out fourteen years later; it is this novel-Vittorini's last-which in now appearing for the first time in English translation.
Readers familiar with Vittorini's work will find Women of Messina remarkably suggestive in both spirit and content of his memorable In Sicily (1937). Once more, the theme is the search for certainty in the face of massive apathy and hopelessness. Consciously evoking Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Vittorini recounts the attempt of metaphorically"shipwrecked" group of men and women-most of them, like him, natives of Sicily-to construct a new life on the site of a devastated village in postwar Italy. A lyrical work of epic scope-termed a "choral narrative" by the novelist Italo Calvino-Women of Messina bears witness to the human will to survive with dignity.
Details
Title
Women of Messina FIRST EDITION
Author
Vittorini, Elio; Frenaye, Frances (Trans.); Keene, Frances (Trans.)
Binding
Hardcover
Condition
Very Good
Publisher
New Directions: New York
Date
1973
Edition
First American Edition, First English Translation