Family Sayings (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Natalia Ginzburg
- First Published: 1963
- Type of Work: Memoir
- Time of Work: The 1920’s to 1950
- Setting: Italy
- Principal Characters: Natalia Levi, Giuseppe Levi, Lydia Levi, Gino, Alberto
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography, Family literature, Biography
- Subjects: Family or family life, Memory, Mothers, Parents and children, World War II, Fathers, Storytelling, Anti-Semitism, Italy or Italians, Fascism, Nostalgia
- Locales: Italy
Form and Content
In the preface to this autobiographical/biographical work, the author makes an unusual request of her readers. While the events depicted are true and the individuals are real, Natalia Ginzburg asks that the book be read as a novel. In her reasoning, she cites the treachery of memory and records that come from a single point of view. Yet this personal family portrait, which begins with Ginzburg’s remembrances of her solitary childhood and ends in 1950 after her second marriage, is more an autobiography than a novel. While following a generally linear time...
[The entire page is 2077 words long]
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