The captivating rediscovered feminist classic: the moving story of a woman's slow rebellion against her bourgeois family life
‘Recently rediscovered, her work has lost none of its subversive force’ New York Times
‘One of Italy's most cosmopolitan, incendiary, insightful, and overlooked writers’ Jhumpa Lahiri
Out running an errand, Valeria Cossati gives in to a sudden impulse - she buys a shiny black notebook. She starts keeping a diary in secret, recording her concerns about her daughter, the constant churn of the domestic routine and her fears that her husband will discover her new habit. With each entry Valeria plunges deeper into her interior life, uncovering profound dissatisfaction and restlessness. As she finds her own voice, the roles that have come to define her--as wife, as mother, as daughter--begin to break apart.
Forbidden Notebook is a rediscovered jewel of Italian literature, published here in a new translation by the celebrated Ann Goldstein and with a foreword by Jhumpa Lahiri. A captivating feminist classic, it is an intimate, haunting story of domestic discontent in postwar Rome, and of one woman's awakening to her true thoughts and desires.
'Reading Alba de Céspedes was, for me, like breaking into an unknown universe: social class, feelings atmosphere' --Annie Ernaux
'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
