Forbidden Notebook
Alba de Céspedes, Ann Goldstein (translation), Jhumpa Lahiri (foreword)Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Longlist
With a foreword by Jhumpa Lahiri, Forbidden Notebook is a classic domestic novel by the Italian-Cuban feminist writer Alba de Céspedes, whose work inspired contemporary writers like Elena Ferrante centring on the inner life of a dissatisfied housewife living in postwar Rome
"Ann Goldstein, who translates Ferrante’s writing & has a particular skill for conveying the full power of a woman’s emotional register, for locating an undertow of wrath or grief even in stated ambivalence, has reinvigorated the text." — Jouman Khatib, The New York Times Book Review
Valeria Cossati never suspected how unhappy she had become with the shabby gentility of her bourgeois life - until she begins to jot down her thoughts and feelings in a little black book she keeps hidden in a closet. This new secret activity leads her to scrutinize herself & her life more closely, & she soon realizes that her individuality is being stifled by her devotion & sense of duty toward her husband, daughter, and son.
As the conflicts between parents & children, husband & wife, & friends & lovers intensify, what goes on behind the Cossatis’ facade of middle-class respectability gradually comes to light, tearing the family’s fragile fabric apart.
"De Céspedes deftly charts the widening gap between Valeria's increasingly desperate inner life & the roles she feels forced to play in a feminist novel that consistently calls into question the ways its narrator makes sense of her claustrophobic domestic world. A wrenching, sardonic depiction of a woman caught in a social trap." — Kirkus Reviews
An exquisitely crafted portrayal of domestic life, Forbidden Notebook recognizes the universality of human aspirations.
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Alba de Céspedes (1911-97) was a bestselling Italian-Cuban novelist, poet & screenwriter. She worked as a journalist throughout the 1930s while also fighting against fascism.&nb