Bøger af Elsa Morante

Den halvjødiske enke og lærerinde Ida bliver under et epileptisk anfald voldtaget af en ung tysk soldat. Resultatet af voldtægten er den lille Useppe, drengen, der taler med dyrene og forstår fuglenes sang. Vi er i Rom under og efter Anden Verdenskrig i årene 1941-1947. Fascisterne vifter med de sorte faner, og Il Duce og Der Führer står i begyndelsen side om side. Da bomberne falder over byen i 1943, evakueres Useppe sammen med sin menneskesky mor og sin livfulde og højtelskede storebror til en husvildebarak og kommer under tag med en række af krigens andre ofre: fortabte fascister, småkriminelle partisanere, jøder på flugt og helt almindelige storfamilier. Midt i de voksnes desperate og voldelige verden præget af angst og sult udstråler Useppe en fundamental glæde ved at være til. Historien er både et knivskarpt anklageskrift mod historiens drivkræfter og en smuk og indfølt beskrivelse af verdens gang set fra det almindelige menneskes perspektiv og anses som et hovedværk i europæisk litteratur. Historien genudgives her i ét bind i Jytte Lollesgaards anmelderroste oversættelse og med nyt forord af Emma Holten.

WINNER OF THE ALTA 2024 ITALIAN PROSE IN TRANSLATION AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE OXFORD-WEIDENFELD PRIZE 2024'I loved it and it had been a long time since I had read anything that gave me such life and joy' Natalia GinzburgThe first unabridged English translation of the electrifying novel of secrets and delusions, from one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century.Elisa - orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales - has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past, weaving the tale of her mother and grandmother through a history of intrigue, treachery, deception and desire. But as her saga of three generations of Sicilian women proceeds, it becomes something else entirely, taking in a whole legacy of oppression and injustice. By turns flamboyant and intense, raging and funny, Lies and Sorcery is a celebration of the female imagination, and the power of storytelling itself.First published in 1948, Elsa Morante's debut novel won the Viareggio Prize and earned her the lasting admiration of generations of writers from Italo Calvino and Natalia Ginzburg to Elena Ferrante.Translated by Jenny McPhee

Once considered the greatest writer of Italy's postwar generation-and admired by authors as varied as John Banville and Rivka Galchen-Elsa Morante is experiencing a literary renaissance, marked not least by Ann Goldstein's translation of Arturo's Island, the novel that brought Morante international fame. Imbued with a spectral grace, as if told through an enchanted looking glass, the novel follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where-his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion-he roams the countryside and the beaches or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering existence is upended when his father brings home a beautiful sixteen-year-old bride, Nunziatella.A novel of longing and thwarted desires, filled with Morante's "brutal directness and familial torment" (James Wood), Arturo's Island reemerges in this splendid translation to take its rightful place in the world literary canon.

Originally published: Italy: Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 1982.