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Alba de Céspedes (1911-97) was a bestselling Italian-Cuban novelist, poet and screenwriter. The granddaughter of the first President of Cuba, de Céspedes was raised in Rome. Married at 15 and a mother by 16, she began her writing career after her divorce at the age of 20. She worked as a journalist throughout the 1930s while also taking an active part in the Italian partisan struggle, and was twice jailed for her anti-fascist activities. After the fall of fascism, she founded the literary journal Mercurio and went on to become one of Italy's most successful and most widely translated authors. Forbidden Notebook is also available from Pushkin Press.At once a revolutionary thriller, bildungsroman and cry of feminist frustration... What takes Her Side of the Story from feminist tragedy into actual-work-of-genius territory is its strange, almost nauseating moments of menace... I will turn to this shard-in-the-heart book again one day, knowing new treasures await me inside
- Laura Hackett, Sunday Times
Reading Alba de Céspedes was, for me, like breaking into an unknown universe: social class, feelings, atmosphere
- Annie Ernaux,
One of Italy's most cosmopolitan, incendiary, insightful, and overlooked writers
- Jhumpa Lahiri,
Alba de Céspedes wrote novels in the 1940s and 1950s that were radically contemporary, both then and now... A courageous novel, beautifully imagined and written
Washington Post
A fascinating study in what it was like for a clever and rebellious woman to grow up in the profound and persistent anti-feminism of Italy before and for some time after the war... A shrewd, perceptive, poignant story about the perils of imagining happiness to be anything but an illusion
TLS
de Céspedes masterfully chronicles how a lifetime of indignities and sufferings can pile up to fray even the most well-intended people... Her Side of the Story is an achievement that warrants not only a second look at this forgotten writer, but also an important place in the canon of women's literature
Chicago Review of Books
Devastating... de Céspedes's melancholy testament to a hidden life feels timeless and vital
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A lavishly detailed critique of romantic ideals and social constrictions
Kirkus Review
Electric... de Céspedes's novel anticipates the candid confessionals of writers such as Deborah Levy, Sheila Heti and Rachel Cusk... Formally precise, psychologically rich, and suffused in suspicion and suspense, Forbidden Notebook is an exquisite, tormented how
Financial Times
While I'm writing, I confine myself to occasionally reading books that keep me company not as entertainment but as solid companions. I call them books of encouragement, like those by Alba de Céspedes
- Elena Ferrante,
Recently rediscovered, her work has lost none of its subversive force
New York Times
de Céspedes writes with an unsentimental, unsparing, impassioned view of what it means to be a woman
Irish Independent
An epic... It is the story of Alessandra's childhood and adolescence, and the influence of her mother and grandmother, at which the novel most excels
Irish Times
The Cuban-Italian Simone de Beauvoir... Jill Foulston's translation forcefully captures the radical character of a formidable woman
Jewish Chronicle
An epic tale of love and a woman's search for independence and agency, set in fascist Italy. Brilliant
Marie Claire