The Silent Duchess
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3.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The stunning English translation of the International Man Booker Prize Finalist novel hailed as "a story of grace and endurance, not mere survival" (The New York Times Book Review).
Winner of the Premio Campiello, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award, and published to critical acclaim in fourteen languages, this "spellbinding" historical novel by one of Italy's premier authors is now available in this luminous new translation (Booklist).
In early 18th century Sicily, noblewoman Marianna Ucrìa is trapped in a world of silence after a terrible childhood trauma left her deaf and mute. Married off to a lecherous uncle, she struggles to educate and elevate herself against all convention—and find her true place in a world that sees her as little more than property.
In language that conveys the keen vision and deep human insight possessed by her protagonist, Dacia Maraini captures the splendor and the corruption of Marianna's world, as well as the strength of her unbreakable spirit, in "one of those rare, rich, deep, strange novels that create a world so fantastic and so real you want to start reading it again as soon as you come to the last page" (Newsday).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The publication in America of Maraini's The Silent Duchess, originally issued in Italy as La hunga vita di Marianna Ucria (1990), 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. As a result of being sexually abused as a young child, the duchess Marianna (in real life, an ancestor of the author) has lost both voice and hearing and communicates with others by writing notes. A free spirit, she contrives to educate and liberate herself through reading while living in a society that totally subjugates women. (Sicilian aristocrats were so idle and poor, though wealthy in unproductive land, that all members of the family were sacrificed to the eldest son and heir.) The only choices for women of her rank are either an arranged marriage or betrothal to Christ and life in a convent (the choice of Marianna's daughter, Felice). As Camaiti-Hostert writes in her afterword, this novel is "the story of a life seen, smelled, tasted, and touched"; like a silent movie, the narrative unfolds without sound, but in Maraini's deft hands, this silence becomes a powerful metaphor for the plight of a young woman growing up in an impoverished but proud, unenlightened but self-righteous patriarchy. FYI : The Silent Duchess won Italy's 1990 Premio Campiello and England's 1992 Independent Foreign Fiction Award. It has been translated into 14 languages.
