Nobel Prize Winner Luigi Pirandello set out to write one short story per day for one whole year. Death kept him from fulfilling that goal; nevertheless, he came close to achieving it. Although there are several themes in the collection, the one on suicide and the one on madness seem to stand out. The late Giovanni Bussino, who had planned to translate all of Pirandello’s stories into English, himself died before he could fulfill that goal.
Luigi Pirandello became famous as an author of drama; his innovative techniques, however, and his delving into the psychology of his characters, brought him world acclaim. The same drama is played out in each character presented in this volume, especially in, Sunrise, In Silence, and, While the Heart Suffered. In many ways, their lives’ situations become similar to those of our own. Like Pirandello’s characters, very often we find ourselves enclosed in jars that we build around ourselves only to realize that we have to break that jar in order to gain freedom. The problem is: freedom from what? From the monsters we’ve created for ourselves, or from those created for us! In Tales of Suicide, however, the act of self-destruction becomes terminal. There is no coming out of the jar now matter the pieces tragically destined to be left behind.

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