The Silent Duchess - Softcover

Maraini, Dacia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 190641372X ISBN 13: 9781906413729

Publisher: Arcadia, 2010

Synopsis

Palermo, Sicily. In the Piazza Marina a large crowd has gathered to witness the public hanging of a young brigand. Duke Signoretto di Fontanasalsa, leader of the Noble Fathers of the Inquisition, is in attendance, and with him is his deaf-mute daughter, Marianna, who is seven years old. The child watches as the rope is slipped round the prisoner's neck; there is a roll of drums and the hangman kicks away the box on which the boy is standing; the body drops and starts to rotate. The execution over, the Duke turns to his daughter: surely such a sight will force her to speak? But she remains silent and trembling, clinging to the folds of her father's robes. Set in the mid-eighteenth century, Dacia Maraini's unforgettable novel tells the story of three generations of the Ucria family, seen through the watchful eyes of the young Duchess Marianna. Married at thirteen to her own uncle, set apart from others by her disability, she searches for fulfilment in a society in which women facer either marriage and endless childbearing, or a life of renunciation within the walls of a convent.

About this title

Review

Dacia Maraini is something of a national treasure in Italy. The author of more than 50 books, a director of stage and screen, and an outspoken feminist, Maraini has never been afraid of controversy. The Silent Duchess won prestigious awards in Italy upon its publication there in 1990, and has since been translated into 14 languages. It tells the story of Marianna Ucria, an 18th-century noblewoman who is both deaf and mute following a mysterious childhood trauma. Though outwardly Marianna's life follows the same trajectory as most women's of her class and time--an arranged marriage and endless childbearing--her inner life is quite unique. Within the silent world she occupies, Marianna pursues a vigorous life of the mind; in fact, silence becomes a weapon she wields to defend her deepest, truest self against society's suppression of women's creativity and will. From the first, horrifying images of a child's hanging, through Marianna's forced marriage to her elderly uncle, and finally to her recollection of the trauma that scarred her, The Silent Duchess takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the mores and manners of 18th-century Sicily and into the mind of its enigmatic, courageous heroine.

About the Author

One of Italy's foremost women writers, Dacia Maraini is the author of more than fifty books, including novels, plays, collections of poetry and critical essays. Her second novel, The Age of Discontent, won the international Prix Formentor, and she has been the recipient of two of Italy's highest literary honours, the Premio Campiello and the Premio Strega. Her novel The Silent Duchess, an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Born in Florence, Dacia Maraini currently resides in Rome.

Edition details

• Publisher: Arcadia
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 190641372X
• ISBN 13: 9781906413729
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 300