Within the Walls

(Paperback)

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A new translation of Bassani's award winning short story collection, which inspired his masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis A young working class woman abandoned by her bourgeois lover, the tensions of intermarriage between established classes and communities, a holocaust survivor seemingly back from the dead, a formidable socialist activist defying house arrest, and the only witness to the first local atrocity of the Second World War. Five unforgettable stories in which Bassani gave life to the characters that would inform his much loved sequence of Ferrara novels. Moving, poetic, atmospheric and artfully observed, this collection is a distillation of Bassani's genius. It won the Strega Prize on first publication as Cinque Storie Ferraresi in 1956, and established Bassani as one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century.

Reviews

Giorgio Bassani is one of the great witnesses of this century, and one of its great artists * Guardian *
Powerful new translations . . . Bassani began as a poet, and McKendrick's redelivery of this taut uncompromising fiction reveals resonance and generosity -- Ali Smith
No one else writes about time like this. Bassani is deeply unsettling and yet a joy to read. -- David Herman * Jewish Chronicle *

Author Bio

Giorgio Bassani was born in 1916. From 1938 onwards he became involved in various anti-fascist activities for which he was imprisoned in 1943. His works include The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, and Five Stories of Ferrara (Within the Walls), which won the Strega Prize. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis was awarded the Viareggio Prize in 1962 and was made into a feature film. Jamie McKendrick is an award-winning poet and translator. His translations of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles and the Smell of Hay are already available, and he is currently translating the rest of the Ferrara Cycle anew for Penguin Modern Classics.