Ivy - Deledda, Grazia

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Résumé :
Annesa, one of Grazia Deledda's most enigmatic and dramatic characters, battles with a guilt she suffers when her own strength tempts her to a crime that will save others who won't save themselves. Annesa has tragically attached herself to the tree of the Decherchi family, once noble but now dry-rotting on hard times. Her lover, Paulu Decherchi, compares her to a suffocating ivy clinging to the dead trunk. Distraught almost to the point of madness, Annesa finally cuts herself free from her adopted family. Escaping arrest for a wealthy relative's death -- and fleeing the men who dictate the laws that control the lives of women and the poor -- she imposes her own punishment of exile. But she will return to the impoverished Decherchis to complete her penance after she has purified her soul and found her own peace. Annesa's fate and destiny are co-joined to the wild Sardinian landscape, described in Ivy with a passion only hinted at in Deledda's other works. Its brooding and wild mountains scarred with haunted caves create an atmosphere weighed down by poverty, prejudice, and ill omen. Many consider Ivy to be Deledda's best work, surpassing even Elias Portolu and Reeds in the Wind (Canne al vento). Here she deeply probes the misguided but altruistic motivation of a woman totally dependent on others who lack her own moral fortitude. Deledda won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926, writing fiction set in Sardinia, mining it deeply and evoking its people and their character. Ivy, Deledda's third novel, was originally published in 1908 in Italian as L'Edera and has never been previously published in English. First English translation. Introduction, notes, bibliography. 198 pages.

Biographie:
Grazia Deledda nasce a Nuoro nel 1871, in una famiglia di piccoli proprietari terrieri. Interrotti gli studi precocemente, la giovane Grazia approfondisce da autodidatta la sua passione per la letteratura, giungendo a pubblicare alcuni suoi racconti sulla rivista L?Ultima Moda, a soli 19 anni. Nel 1900 si trasferisce a Roma con il marito, conosciuto a Cagliari l?anno prima: rimarr? nella citt? fino alla morte, avvenuta nel 1936. E? proprio nella capitale che i suoi capolavori vedono la luce: Elias Portolu (1903), Cenere (1904), L?Edera (1908), L?incendio nell?oliveto (1918), Il segreto di un uomo solitario (1914), Canne al vento (1913), Marianna Sirca (1915), Il Dio dei viventi (1922), e infine Cosima, pubblicato postumo. Ma ? il 1926 a rappresentare una data significativa per la scrittrice, chiamata a ritirare il premio Nobel per la letteratura: Grazia Deledda, prima donna a ricevere tale onorificenza, fu premiata per la sua prosa idealisticamente ispirata che con chiarezza plastica dipinge la vita della sua isola nativa e con profondit? e simpatia si confronta con i problemi umani in generale....

Sommaire:
Annesa, one of Grazia Deledda's most enigmatic and dramatic characters, battles with a guilt she suffers when her own strength tempts her to a crime that will save others who won't save themselves. Annesa has tragically attached herself to the tree of the Decherchi family, once noble but now dry-rotting on hard times. Her lover, Paulu Decherchi, compares her to a suffocating ivy clinging to the dead trunk. Distraught almost to the point of madness, Annesa finally cuts herself free from her adopted family. Escaping arrest for a wealthy relative's death -- and fleeing the men who dictate the laws that control the lives of women and the poor -- she imposes her own punishment of exile. But she will return to the impoverished Decherchis to complete her penance after she has purified her soul and found her own peace. Annesa's fate and destiny are co-joined to the wild Sardinian landscape, described in Ivy with a passion only hinted at in Deledda's other works. Its brooding and wild mountains scarred with haunted caves create an atmosphere weighed down by poverty, prejudice, and ill omen. Many consider Ivy to be Deledda's best work, surpassing even Elias Portolu and Reeds in the Wind (Canne al vento). Here she deeply probes the misguided but altruistic motivation of a woman totally dependent on others who lack her own moral fortitude. Deledda won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1926, writing fiction set in Sardinia, mining it deeply and evoking its people and their character. Ivy, Deledda's third novel, was originally published in 1908 in Italian as L'Edera and has never been previously published in English. First English translation. Introduction, notes, bibliography. 198 pages....