The Seamstress of Sardinia
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Born into poverty, the seamstress spends her days sewing in the houses of wealthy families. Her work is simple and honest; taught by her nonna, she skilfully prepares nightgowns, undergarments and children’s clothes, leaving the finer work of dressmaking to the ateliers in Paris.
Her story weaves in and out of the lives of the people she works for, whose secrets and scandals she is privy to. Some are kind and generous, others blinded by their desire to climb the social ladder. She dreams of freeing herself from the hardscrabble life she has inherited but can’t help being pulled back in by the love of the people around her.
Set at the dawn of the twentieth century, The Seamstress of Sardinia follows the girl as she grows into a woman, strives to educate herself and falls in love—always fighting for her independence in a world dominated by men and old social conventions.
Bianca Pitzorno was born in Sardinia in 1942. Since 1970 she has published sixty works of fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. Her books have sold more than two million copies in Italy and been translated into many languages. Pitzorno has also translated into Italian books by J. R. R. Tolkien, Sylvia Plath and Tove Jansson.
‘A delicate novel of women’s formation and emancipation.’ Simone Mosca, la Repubblica
‘Pitzorno is an icon…[This novel] is yet another confirmation.’ Corriere del Ticino
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pitzorno's sparkling English-language debut follows a poor Sardinian orphan girl's coming-of-age as she becomes a seamstress, opera lover, and independent young woman. At five, in 1900, the unnamed narrator loses her parents in a cholera epidemic. She's taken in by her grandmother, Nonna, a seamstress who teaches her to sew. By age seven, the girl is helping with the work, and well-to-do brides teach her to read and offer her novels, periodicals, and opera libretti in exchange for sewing their trousseaux and layettes. Nonna dies when the narrator is 16, and she manages to sidestep the pitfalls awaiting young women of the lower classes thanks to her sewing skills and literacy. Though finding work is sometimes a struggle, she survives the lean times with her dignity intact and catches operas from the nosebleed seats. Independent women—including a bicycle-riding American journalist and the beneficent, globe-trotting Marchesina Ester—provide moral and financial support. A tantalizing suitor appears, but the narrator's problems are resolved more through courage, self-sacrifice, and honesty than through love or money. Minutely described period clothing and memorable characters conveyed via Maher's seamless translation add to the charm. This sumptuous costume drama has a great deal of heart.
