House Of Shadows

Messina, Maria

Shepley, John [Translator]

The Marlboro Press

House in the Shadows

First published in Italy in 1921, this short novel is a dark, grim account of two Sicilian women's voluntary imprisonment in the elder's dull, dour marriage. Sisters Nicolina and Antonietta see their chance to flee their small Italian village when Don Lucio announces his intentions to marry Antonietta. They envision a grand life for themselves in Lucio's large, gloomy house in the city--but their taste of freedom proves fleeting. Nicolina dwindles to an unpaid drudge for her sister's family, while Antonietta fares only slightly better as a wife-of-all-work and beleaguered mother. Together the housebound pair ministers to the touchy Don (a domineering, wily paterfamilias and likely crook whose cunning they barely sense) and withers gradually in servitude. After the Don seduces Nicolina, the sisters' friendship ends, and further tragedy intrudes in the self-inflicted death of Antonietta's young son. Though dated in her fairy-tale-like simplicity of character, Messina, who died in 1944, wrote with courage and understated strength of a narrow, prototypically female life singed by masochistic fury.

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Marlboro Press

La casa nel vicolo: Con una nota di Ada Negri (P-Mondi. Maria Messina) (Italian Edition)

Negri, Ada

Genre Fiction

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Miniature di ragazze siciliane, lavorate a cesello, rifinite in oro. Sono novelle del 1921, che raccontano ragazze del 1921, che abitano la provincia siciliana e che lottano per respirare libertà, per poter portare a compimento il loro progetto di vita, che a volte non hanno un progetto perché sono allevate pensando che qualcun altro, un uomo generalmente, sarà l’artefice della loro felicità, della loro sicurezza, della loro sorte. Ciascuna di loro crede in qualcosa e sogna di spendersi per ottenerlo anche quando il passaggio da seme a frutto non trova compimento. E noi è come se da dietro la tenda spiassimo un momento, uno solo della vita di Luciuzza, Caterina, Camilla, donna Bobò, Marina e delle altre donne che popolano queste pagine. Stiamo lì ad origliare, ad ascoltare i loro dialoghi, a spiare i pianti e i sussurri, a tifare per un loro riscatto, perché alzino la testa, inutili ma partecipi della loro vita e talvolta del loro dolore, sempre della loro impotenza...

Ragazze Siciliane (Italian Edition)

Parenting & Relationships

With an ear for dialogue that may be compared to Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, and Ernest Hemingway, Sicilian writer Maria Messina presents the captivating and brutal realities of women living in early-twentieth-century Italy in this first collection of her work available in English. Behind Closed Doors portrays the habits and gestures, the words spoken and those left unsaid, of individuals caught between the traditions they respect and a desire to ease the social restrictions in their lives. Messina’s stories reveal a world in which women are shuttered in their houses, virtual servants to their families, and working men immigrate to the United States in fortune-seeking droves. It is also a world of unstated privileges in which habits and implied commands perpetuate women’s servitude. A cultural album that captures the lives of peasant, working-class, and middle-class women, this volume will appeal to millions of Italian descendants and readers everywhere fascinated by Italian history.

Behind Closed Doors: Her Father's House and Other Stories of Sicily

The Feminist Press at CUNY

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