I deeply love the works of Elsa Morante... I try to learn from her books, but I find them unsurpassable
- Elena Ferrante,
Elsa Morante brings to her tale an almost Greek sense of fated inevitability... timeless
- John Banville,
Wonderfully rich... The genius of Elsa Morante's book is its investigation of the relationship between beauty and power... The whole novel presents itself as an enchantment that seizes the reader's mind
- Tim Parks, New Statesman
Morante delivers epic emotions...her writing...has the power of malediction
New York Times
A storyteller who spellbinds
- Stephen Spender, New York Review of Books
This lovely translation... will hopefully go a long way toward re-establishing Morante's reputation among English-speaking readers. It's a magnificent novel, breathtaking in its psychological acuity... By turns devastating and otherworldly, Morante's novel is a classic, and Goldstein's new translation should return to it the attention it deserves
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Goldstein captures the blustery voice of an adolescent boy... a captivating novel
Publishers Weekly
An inspired work of fiction
TLS
[Arturo's Island] will garner its neglected author the new readers she deserves... a celebration of childhood, an homage to the power of myth and the redemptive goodness of nature and animals
Wall Street Journal
Astonishing for the quality of the writing . . . the complexity of the invented world, the wide-ranging view of the human condition
- Elena Ferrante,
'Unsurpassable' Elena Ferrante
'Timeless' John Banville
Young Arturo grows up in isolated freedom on an island in the Bay of Naples, roaming the hills with his dog, sailing and reading tales of mythical heroes.
This idyll is shattered when his father returns home with a new wife, Nunziata. Barely older than Arturo, one of the only women he has ever met, she awakens his fierce longing for tenderness, a longing which draws the family towards a painful reckoning in this powerful story of disillusionment and desire.
Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.
Translated by Ann Goldstein.
Elsa Morante (1912-1985) was an Italian novelist, short-story writer and poet. Born and raised in Rome, she started writing at a young age, initially publishing short stories in children's journals. Married to the writer Alberto Moravia, she spent much of the Second World War in hiding with him, both having much to fear from the Fascists due to their Jewish heritage and the social and sexual themes explored in their writing. Her first novel, House of Liars, was published in 1948 and won the Viareggio Prize. Arturo's Island, published in 1957, made her the first woman to win the Strega Prize, and in 1974 her novel History became a record-breaking bestseller and confirmed her reputation as one of the most important writers of twentieth-century Italy.
Ann Goldstein is a former New Yorker editor and has won prizes and accolades for her translations of Primo Levi and Elena Ferrante.