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Neapolitan Chronicles Audiobook
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Publisher Description
A riveting classic of European literature, this superb collection of fiction and reportage is set in Italy’s most vibrant and turbulent metropolis―Naples―in the immediate aftermath of World War II. These writings helped inspire Elena Ferrante’s bestselling novels, and she has expressed deep admiration for the author of this volume.
Goyaesque in its depiction of the widespread suffering and brutal desperation that plagued the city, it comprises a mix of masterful storytelling and piercing journalism. This book, with its unforgettable portrait of Naples high and low, is also a stunning literary companion to the great neorealist films of the era by directors such as Vittorio de Sica and Roberto Rossellini.
Neapolitan Chronicles is exquisitely rendered in English by Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee, two of the leading translators working from Italian today. Included in the collection is “A Pair of Eyeglasses,” one of the most widely praised Italian short stories of the last century.
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“Ortese portrays the human dimension of the city’s poverty through short stories…Ortese’s articles and stories serve as a provocative showcase of how a city once associated with ‘ecstatic happiness…deteriorated into vice and folly.’"
— Publishers Weekly
Quotes
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“The stories collected in this volume, which reverberate with Chekhovian energy and melancholy, are revered in Italy by writers and readers alike. Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee reward us with a fresh and scrupulous translation.”
— Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize–winning author -
“This collection of writing and reportage about Naples was a major inspiration for Elena Ferrante. Ortese’s portrait of the Italian city just after World War II is of a place of poverty and desperation.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Today, few critics would disagree with the poet Andrea Zanzotto, who rates [Ortese] as ‘one of the most important Italian women writers of this century.’"
— Independent (London) -
“An astonishing descent into the underworld…A modern artist has rarely rendered so intensely the spectrality of all things.”
— La Repubblica (Rome) -
“In stories and essays, Ortese describes both the Neapolitan poor and the bourgeois in granular detail…Required reading for Ferrante fans and scholars of Neapolitan literature.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“This remarkable city portrait, both phantasmagorical and harshly realistic, conveys Naples in all its shabbiness and splendor.”
— Phillip Lopate, author of Waterfront
Awards
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A New York Times Pick of New Books
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About Anna Maria Ortese
Anna Maria Ortese (1914–1998) is one of the most celebrated and original Italian writers of the twentieth century. Neapolitan Chronicles brought her widespread acclaim in her native country when it was first published in 1953 and won the prestigious Premio Viareggio.
About Gabra Zackman
Gabra Zackman is an actress, author, and narrator who has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards. She was educated at Northwestern University. A classically trained actress, she has appeared in theaters all over the country as well as on film and television.