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Maria Messina (1887–1944) was born in Palermo, Sicily. She taught herself to read and write, eventually finding a mentor in the famed Italian realist Giovanni Verga, who encouraged her to begin writing seriously. Her works include novels, short stories, and children's tales. In 1910, she received the Medal of Gold for her first book of stories, Pettini-fini (Fine Combs).
Fred Gardaphe is the director of Italian American Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the president of MELUS (The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US).
Elise Magistro holds a doctorate in Italian from UCLA and is a lecturer in Italian at Scripps College in Claremont, California.
Behind Closed Doors: Her Father's House and Other Stories of Sicily
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ISBN-13:
9781558616486
- Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY, The
- Publication date: 05/01/2009
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 144
- Sales rank: 401,273
- File size: 281 KB
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Stories of Sicily, immigration, and the lives of Sicilian women in the early 20th century.
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Publishers Weekly
More than 60 years after her death, Sicilian realist Messina (1887-1944) gets her first English translation, 10 stories published between 1909 and 1928 that focus on the downtrodden, poor and middle-class women of her native island. Two stories, "America 1911" and "America 1918," explore immigration and emigration from expectant departure to unsettling return, while "Grandmother Lidda" takes the intimate perspective of an elderly mother left behind. In "Her Father's House," Vanna returns seeking refuge from her woeful marriage to a Rome lawyer, only to find she has lost her place in her family. Meanwhile, the deaf mute protagonist of "Ciancianedda" struggles to communicate with her new husband. Messina's raw and psychologically deft tales render these women's lives with pathos and dignity, and Magistro's lucid translation is at once lyrical and immediate. Absorbing and culturally rich, these stories should help secure Messina's place in Italian letters. (Oct.)Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Kirkus Reviews
Messina, who died in her late 40s in 1944, was a rarity, a woman from Sicily who wrote about the impoverished reality of Sicilian women's lives. From the evidence of this slim collection of ten stories, accompanied by an extensive introduction and afterword by translator Magistro, Messina aimed to capture with as much naturalism as possible the inner and outer landscape in which her female protagonists dwelled. The results are brief fragmentary slices of long, barely endurable lives. The opening story, "Grace," sets the tone, depicting the helplessness of a woman waiting in desperation for a worthless man she knows has strayed. Similar is the desperation of the deaf wife with a cheating husband in "Ciancianedda." Four of the stories deal directly with the flow of Sicilian men to La Merica, and the women they leave behind. In "America 1911," a wife trying to accompany her husband is rejected for health reasons and goes mad. In "Dainty Shoes," a woman whose fiance has gone to La Merica to earn enough money for their wedding is forced to marry another man to avoid starvation before her true love returns. When her son leaves for America, a mother has nothing to live for but her grandson, but then the son sends for him too ("Grandmother Lidda"). In one of the strongest stories, "America 1918," a husband returns after eight years to find his wife as changed and foreign to him as he has become to her. "I Take You Out" and "Red Roses" concern women of the middle class who are trapped into solitude by their families. Ironically, in "Her Father's House," an unhappily married woman who tries to return home realizes suicide is her only escape. In the unusually detailed "Caterina's Loom," a prettyyoung girl evolves under the pressures of her life into a resigned spinster. Individually slight, as a volume the stories give a pretty devastating picture of Sicilian life in the early 20th century.
From the Publisher
[T]hese ten persuasive tales offer stark, finely drawn portraits of poor and middle-class Sicilian women in the early years of the twentieth century.” — The New York Review of Books “A window into another time and another culture... We understand the emotions of [the] characters, simultaneously victims and heroines... Messina’s words will leave their mark. Their power makes them impossible to forget.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Virtually the only great Italian fiction about the massive Sicilian immigration to America written while it was happening... honed, polished, devastatingly direct—verismo at its unsentimental best.” — Booklist
“[T]hese ten persuasive tales offer stark, finely drawn portraits of poor and middle-class Sicilian women in the early years of the twentieth century.” — The New York Review of Books
“A window into another time and another culture... We understand the emotions of [the] characters, simultaneously victims and heroines... Messina’s words will leave their mark. Their power makes them impossible to forget.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Virtually the only great Italian fiction about the massive Sicilian immigration to America written while it was happening... honed, polished, devastatingly direct—verismo at its unsentimental best.” — Booklist