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  • Published: 5 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9780141988085
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

A Woman




The heart-wrenching autobiographical novel that paved the way for feminist writers in Italy

'Women were certainly not yet mistresses of themselves. Would they ever be?'
First published in 1906, this semi-autobiographical novel is a key text for understanding Italian women's writing of the twentieth century and offers a tremendous insight into fin de siècle Italian life and its complex web of social issues.

Aleramo's astonishing account takes the reader across a tormented journey of self-affirmation - from the narrator's loss of innocence, grief and isolation, enlightenment, then independence - offering a strikingly clear self-analysis and a vibrant depiction of the early feminist movement in Italy. It is a captivating Bildungsroman whose endpoint is a new, emancipated female identity.

  • Published: 5 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9780141988085
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

Praise for A Woman

The first Italian feminist novel ... her voice brings us back to the present, with the dose of courage needed to freely choose one's destiny

La Repubblica

Powerful

Luigi Pirandello

A groundbreaking, earthquaking vision, a story and a manifesto, and a literary performance so energetic it almost demands to be read aloud . . . Readers who like to underline striking passages will need to keep their pencils sharp

John Self, Guardian

What makes A Woman stand out is the rawness of its story ... and the fact that Aleramo was ahead of her time

Caroline Moorehead, TLS

She blurred the boundaries of autobiography and the novel, singular self and narrative other

Selby Wynn Schwartz

Searing . . . astonishingly sharp . . . such a modern book it's hard to believe it was written more than 100 years ago

Laura Waddell, Scotsman