There's No Turning Back: A Novel - Softcover

De Céspedes, Alba

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1668083647 ISBN 13: 9781668083642

Publisher: Washington Square Press, 2026

Synopsis

Discover the “boundary-breaking” (LitHub) debut novel by the beloved feminist author of the “brilliant” (The Wall Street Journal) Forbidden Notebook and the “courageous” (The Washington Post) Her Side of the Story that was so subversive, it was banned by the Italian Fascist regime when it was first published in 1938.

A coming-of-age novel that is as relevant today as it was nearly ninety years ago, There’s No Turning Back centers on eight women with radically different backgrounds who attend the same college in Rome. Some are there to study, others to escape a scandal, or keep a secret, and during their time there, they experience the challenges of love, work, and emancipation.

Considered experimental and revolutionary at the time, this novel established Alba de Céspedes as “one of Italy’s most cosmopolitan, incendiary, insightful, and overlooked writers” (Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winner). Translated by Ann Goldstein, There’s No Turning Back demonstrates why de Céspedes deserves “an important place in the canon of women’s literature” (Chicago Review of Books).

About this title

About the Author

Alba de Céspedes (1911–1997) was a bestselling Italian Cuban feminist writer greatly influenced by the cultural developments that lead to and resulted from World War II. Along with being imprisoned for her anti-fascist work, several of her novels were banned in Italy. After the war, she moved to Paris, where she lived until her death in 1997. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1668083647
• ISBN 13: 9781668083642
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304