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A collection of essays which aim to broaden the reader's knowledge of Luigi Pirandello and his influence on 20th century drama. The essays cover issues of theory, genre, gender, and language and theatre. ... Read more

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An extensive collection of much previously unpublished archival material including documents from Luigi Pirandello's theoretical essays and reviews. Emphasising Pirandello as a multi-faceted man of the theatre, this book follows the rise and fall of his own theatre company and his attempts to reform deeply entrenched practices in Italian theatre during the years of Fascism.
Susan Bassnett and Jennifer Lorch are lecturers of Italian at the University of Warwick, UK. ... Read more

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This work examines the manifestations of the maternal figure in a significant corpus of narrative and theatrical works, namely those of Lorca and Pirandello. The interdisciplinary study utilizes research in psychoanalysis, sociology and the history of the religion in its analysis. In Part I, the author points out the numinous elements of the maternal figure represented by selected artists - motifs of the good mother, of the terrible mother, of the water, fire and earth's maternity, of the absent mother and of the double mother. Part II focuses upon Federico Garcia Lorca's 'dramas rurales', Bodas de sangre, Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba, underlining the various aspects of the female representation. The most important elements of the female images in Luigi Pirandello's theatre constitute Part III. The author examines archetypical works such as, La nuova colonia, Lazzaro, I giganti della montagna. ... Read more

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Luigi Pirandello is best known for his experimental plays, but his narrative production has not enjoyed the same degree of critical attention. O'Rawe's study represents the first major reassessment of this output, including the 'realist' novels, the historical novel I vecchi e i giovani (1909) and the autobiographical Suo marito (1911). The book identifies in Pirandello a practice of 'self-plagiarism' - constant rewriting and revision and obsessive re-use of material - and explores the relation of these overlooked modes of composition to the author's own theories of authorship and textuality. Drawing on a wide range of critical theory, O'Rawe repositions Pirandello as a major figure in the development of European narrative modernism. ... Read more

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In February 1925, the 58-year-old world-famous playwright Luigi Pirandello met Marta Abba, an unknown, beautiful actress less than half his age. She was to become, until his death in December 1936, not only his confidante but also his inspiring muse, artistic collaborator and co-reformer of Italian theater. 32 halftones. ... Read more

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An artist's love
Luigi Pirandello was one of the greatest Italian writers, certainly one of the best of the twentieth century. At the age of sixty-eight, he met the beautiful and vivacious Marta Abba, a lovely young actress. Though he was old enough to be her father, Pirandello fell in love with Marta, and she remained his muse, his confidante, and his emotional focus.

His letters reveal the many facets of his personality. Some readers might be a little weirded out by the intensity of his feelings for Marta (especially since she never entirely returned them), but many years in the future it's clear that even if she didn't exactly return his feelings, she did care about him, liked him, respected him, and appreciated his feelings about her. "To me he was like a god," she is quoted as saying, even though she got to see all his flaws. And Pirandello's feelings are not those of a dirty old man falling for a much younger woman -- he's revealed, even in old age, as being a very passionate and intense person.

In his letters, he often talks about making her a famous actress, and how the two of them would reform the theatre. The foreword written by Benito Ortolani includes his descriptions of meeting Marta herself, in the 1980s, and what she had to say about "the Maestro." Unfortunately there aren't any pictures.

The relationship between Pirandello and Marta was a unique one, a mishmash of unusual feelings. Definitely worth the read. ... Read more

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(The CD MP3 format will play on most NEW CD players and also DVD players and computers. It may not play on older CD players.)This is an unabridged reading, in Italian, of Pirandello's most famous novel, written in 1904.The narrator is the noted Italian stage actor, Claudio Carini.Reading time is 8 hours and 30 minutes. ... Read more

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This is the Naked Truth
I'm a bit out on a limb here because the book I just read by Pirandello is "The Naked Truth" published in the mid 1930's.It is a collection of short stories including the title story.The book I'm rating a "5" here is not necessarily the same book.However, since each and every story was a joy to read, I believe that it is safe to recommend any collection of Pirandello short stories.The stories all take place in a rural Scicilian setting and they have the local flavor seasoned all through out.There is usually either a moral to the story, an implied deeper meaning, or an ironic twist.Among my favorites in "The Naked Truth" were the stories "The Annuity", "The Wayside Shrine", "The Wax Madonna", "The Red Booklet", "The Fly", and "The Benediction".

I initially picked up this book just to read a selection or two.Once I was midway through the first story, I was hooked.I have read other, longer works of the author and I enjoyed them.However, they were not as good as his short stories.I am looking forward to finding more of his short stories. ... Read more

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Book is translated from the Italian by Lily Duplaix. Book contains 5 Sicilian Tales, 6 Tales of Humor and Irony, 7 Tales of Frustration and 4 tales of Anguish and Hope. ... Read more

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The Real and The Imaginary
Pirandello's execution is here exhibited in a pitch perfect symphonic staging. The Nobel Prize winning Italian author allows for the blurring of reality with art to take center stage, as existential absurdist tendencies of a transcendent consciousness adequately and subtly morph the spectacle of life into a vacillating universe where introspection is a projection of aloofness. The narrator is a cameraman for the fledgling movie industry in the early 1920s, and he seems to unravel the momentum of agency all around him are subject to. The Sysophian trade of being human is wrung to its dry core as being is culminated in a distant absent audition of one's own presence. It is undeniably a vintage Pirandello here, and even if his prefferred genra was the theatrical staging of like absurdist dramas, for reasons that are philosophical as much as literary, we read a narrative from the first person perspective that cradles the death of the actor, the indifference of being with abandon.
The primary reason for this review is not so much to praise Pirandello with accolades he has already been favoured by, rather it is to applaud the translator Nicoletta Sinborowski, who in her able, illuminating and sensible art infuses a work with the same scintillating force as the original. A previous translation by CK Scott Moncrieff had been unable to reproduce such a marvelous poetic incandescence in "Shoot!", the literal yet inaccurate rendition of the title "Si Gira!" which implies cyclical tendencies rather than violent adumbrations(yes Moncrieff, the outstanding translator of Proust, perhaps here in a moment of senility). We welcome Sinborowski's work, who in "The Late Mattia Pascal" and Mirbeau's "Abbe Jules" and "Sebastian Roch" has alreay identified herself as a major, budding presence in English literature. She may well do for such literature what Gregory Rabassa has done for Spanish works, or Louise Varese for Rimbaud, or William Weaver for Eco, not to mention the above critizied Moncrieff for Proust.
Intelligent, sparkling, eloquent, artistic, imaginative and nuanced to perfection in its lyrical and tonal stamp we welcome her for it seems that the days of JG Nichols (who has mauled many giants of Italian literature)of Willaim Fowlie's psychodelic homoerotic stutterings, or even Richard Howard's stagnant indiscretions are over, and a counterpart to the Spanish translators school, where we include Margaret Jull Costa, may yet grace us with brilliant renditions of literature that asks questions we should not avoid lest we become as prosaic as a JG Nichols' translation.
I am sure Luigi Pirandello is as grateful to Nicoletta Sinborowski as we are. ... Read more

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One of the twentieth century’s greatest literaryartists and winner of the Nobel prize in 1934, Luigi Pirandello wrotethe novel Her Husband in 1911, before he produced any of thewell-known plays with which his name is most often associatedtoday. Her Husband—translated here for the first time intoEnglish—is a profoundly entertaining work, by turns funny, bitinglysatirical, and tinged with anguish. As important as any of the otherworks in Pirandello’s oeuvre, it portrays the complexities ofmale/female relations in the context of a newly emerging, small butvocal Italian feminist movement.

Evoking in vivid detail the literary world in Rome at the turn of thecentury, Her Husband tells the story of Silvia Roncella, a talentedyoung female writer, and her husband Giustino Boggiolo. The novelopens with their arrival in Rome after having left their provincialsouthern Italian hometown following the success of Silvia’s firstnovel, the rather humorously titled House of Dwarves. As his wife’sself-appointed (and self-important) promoter, protector, counselor,and manager, Giustino becomes the primary target of Pirandello’ssatire. But the couple’s relationship—and their dualcareer—is also complicated by a lively supporting cast ofcharacters, including literary bohemians with avant-garde pretensionsand would-be aristocratic esthetes who are all too aware of the newlyacquired power of journalists and the publishing establishment to makeor break their careers. Having based many of thecharacters—including Silvia and Giustino—on actual literaryacquaintances of his, Pirandello reacted to the novel’scontroversial reception by not allowing it to be reprinted after thefirst printing sold out. Not until after his death were copies againmade available in Italy.

Readers will find Her Husband eerily evocative of the present inmyriad ways—not the least of which is contemporary society’songoing transformation wrought by the changing roles of men and women,wives and husbands. ... Read more

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Commedia in un atto messa in scena per la prima volta nel 1917 in versione siciliana (col titolo 'A birritta cu 'i ciancianeddi) dalla compagnia di Angelo Musco, pubblicata per la prima volta in versione italiana nello stesso anno e poi rivista per le successive pubblicazioni fino al 1925. Protagonista un modesto impiegato, Ciampa, che viene tradito dalla moglie, ma non reagisce fino a quando la moglie dell'amante di lei, gelosa, non provoca uno scandalo: Ciampa allora vede distrutta l'immagine di rispettabilità che ha costruito di sé (ciò che lui chiama il proprio «pupo») e sarebbe costretto a reagire rovinosamente, se non riuscisse a risolvere la situazione facendo apparire l'accusatrice come pazza. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Decent Translation
It is a good translation of Pirandello.Of course I highly recommend Pirandello be read, and this is a worthwhile translation. ... Read more

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