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Alba de Céspedes (1911-1997) | |
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Italian writer and one of the pioneering figures in the feminist movement, best-known for her diary novel Quaderno proibito (1952). In her works de Céspedes drew attention to the woman's position in the family, which she saw as particularly problematic. Her protagonists are frustrated women who struggle against the narrow roles assigned them. Irene and Adriana, the two friends in the novel Between Then and Now (1956), want to live on their own terms in spite of family expectations - but they also recognize that life might be easier with a husband who pays the bills. "'... You know, I'd like to pick up my life like a parcel and dump it in somebody's arms and say, "Now you think about it." But it's never possible, we've pulled down our own destruction upon us. Every morning you find life heavy on your shoulders and you have to start reasoning again. Pietro says that reason sets us free, but that isn't true: reason everlastingly confronts us with ourselves. That's a good joke!'" (from Between Then and Now) Alba de Céspedes was born in Rome the daughter of a Cuban ambassador; her mother was Italian and her paternal grandfather was the first president of Cuba. De Céspedes started to write poetry and plays in her childhood, and by 1935 her stories started to appear in Italian magazines. In the 1930s she worked as a journalist, writing for Epoca and La Stampa. Her first book, L'ANIMA DEGLI ALTRI, appeared in 1935. Her early novels attracted little attention. NESSUNO TORNA INDIETRO (1938, There's No Turning Back) and LA FUGA (1940) were banned by the fascist censors, but brought her worldwide recognition - There's No Turning Back was translated into 24 languages. During the German occupation of Italy in World War II, de Céspedes worked with the partisan Radio Partigiana in Bari and was imprisoned twice. Her code-name was Clorinda. In 1944 she founded the literary magazine Mercurio, which published works from modern Italian writers, among others Alberto Moravia, Eugenio Montale and Elio Vittorini. De Céspedes edited Mercurio for four years. She also served on the staffs of Epoca, where she had her own column, and La Stampa. After the war de Céspedes became one of the most translated Italian writers - English translations in particular made her work known to feminist readers. In her native country she was often ignored by male critics who considered her economically and effectively written novels superficial. De Céspedes was married to Francesco Bounous of the Italian foreign service. She lived in Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Pakistan, among other places. From the 1950s de Céspedes lived in Paris. She wrote over ten novels and two collections of poems. Among her central works is DALLA PARTE DI LEI (1949), which combines stories of male defects and female disappointment. The book was based on her experiences during the war and presented a strong feminine protagonist, a type which was not very common in Italian literature at that time. QUADERNO PROIBITO (1952) is a novel presented in a diary form, in which the protagonist analyzes her needs and small everyday disappointments. She has two grown-up children, Riccardo and Mirella, and a husband who creates his career in a bank. She works in an office, falls in love with the manager, Guido, and blames her husband and children for stifling her. She leaves Guido and burns her notebook, feeling that her remaining days will be empty and cold. The novel was also reworked as a play and a TV drama. Irene, the protagonist in Between Then and Now, rejects safe bourgeois marriage to pursue her career as a journalist. "'It seems impossible, but really it's just these material, practical things that make you realize you exist,' I told myself. 'You don't know you're born until you are faced with bills for which you're directly responsible...'" In PRIMA E DOPO (1956) the female protagonist achieves her freedom after much pain and suffering. IL RIMORSO (1967) was about a group of male intellectuals and dealt with the significance of past actions. LA BAMBALONA (1967) had a male protagonist. In the story a man is ruined by his love for a much younger woman of a lower social class. A volume of poetry, CHANSONS DES FILLES DE MAI (1969), was inspired by the events of May '68 in Paris, which de Céspedes witnessed. The poems were written in French and later translated into Italian by the author. For further reading: Politics of the Visible: Writing Women, Culture, and Fascism by Robin Pickering-Iazzi (1997); Esperienza e narrazione nella scrittura di Alba de Cespedes by Piera Carroli (1993); Women's Literature, ed. by Claire Buck (1992); Il romanzo italiano del popoguerra by G. Pullini (1961). - "De Céspedes is a feminist in the sense that the focus of her interest in the life of the woman of today under the tensions of both traditional responsibilities and the pressures born of emancipation If her characters are not especially complicated, they are well drawn and convincing, and she has the rare gift of being able to tell a story economically and effectively." ( Thomas G. Bergin in Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, ed. by Jean-Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton, 1980) Selected works:
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