Despite the disingenuously modest stance of several of the essays (“I don’t know anything about politics,” for example, as the opening of the astute “An Invisible Government”), hers was a life spent at the center of Italian culture; she even served for one term in Parliament. She enjoyed a close circle of literary friends whose work she did not hesitate to criticize sternly when she saw fit—Alberto Moravia, for one, or Giulio Einaudi, as evidenced in “No Fairies, No Wizards.” Even though she condemns us all to join her, “Our fate spends itself in this succession of hope and nostalgia.” (40), I can’t help rereading, hoping, hopelessly, that she has hidden an answer in the essay, a way to avoid her fate. This wonderful book is a selection of essays from four previously published books of Natalia Ginsburg (1916-1991), translated from the Italian by Lynn Sharon Schwartz. Credo che il mio sia un problema di antipatia invincibile verso l'autrice, che un tempo ho molto amato con Lessico famigliare. Devo averla idealizzata a partire da quel romanzo, perché tutto quello che ho provato a leggere da quel momento mi ha delusa. Mi erano rimaste le raccolte di non fiction, che per esempio avevo apprezzato con Le piccole virtù. Dopo la biografia di Petrignani, però, acquistata con ardore senza saperne niente, ho scoperto un personaggio che non mi piaceva affatto, schivo, misantropo, timido e difficile con cui relazionarsi, tutte cose che in qualche modo sono anch'io, eppure mi ha allontanata molto dall'autrice. Quella stessa antipatia e incomprensibilita' la ritrovo tutta nella lettura di questi articoli. Le recensioni di libri, film e spettacoli, gli omaggi a editori e critici non mi conquistano, preferisco quelli in cui parla di temi più umani e generici su cui esprime un'opinione. Il suo stile è abile non privo di fascino, tuttavia è anche ingenuo, quasi infantile e alla lunga mi irrita. Questa modestia esibita che la porta ad affermare all'inizio di ogni recensione o omaggio "Non sono un critico, di filosofia sono ignorante..", There is no one quite like Natalia Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life. For all those like myself who love Natalia Ginzburg’s prose, this generous selection assembled from her essay collections will be irresistible, a must to own, cherish, and re-read.”—Phillip Lopate

L'inserzione (1968). The Advertisement, transl. Henry Reed (1968) – performed at the Old Vic, London, directed by Sir Laurence Olivier and starring Joan Plowright, in 1968.

NYRB: Jhumpa Lahiri & Cynthia Zarin discuss Natalia Ginzburg's Valentino & Sagittarius". Community Bookstore. 2020-08-13 . Retrieved 2020-10-29. As the author walks through this remembered winter, she describes to her reader whatever details catch her eye in bright focus. But there is also darkness in “Winter in the Abruzzi,” shadowy figures she does not allow us to see clearly: her family. Her children, never referred to as anything less than a plurality, remain faceless and nameless throughout. Her husband, sometimes walking with his arm linked through hers, sometimes working near her at the table, sometimes consulted like an oracle by the people they live among, his only name the one they give him, the professor, is a presence not a character. We are told less about Ginzburg’s family than about the cleaning woman, the shop owner, the neighbors. All that we know of her family is what can be shown by the shape of their absence. They do not exist in this essay; they haunt it. In winter some old person would die of pneumonia, the bells of Santa Maria tolled the death knell, and Domenico Orecchia, the carpenter, built the casket. A woman went crazy and was taken to the asylum at Collemaggio and the whole town talked about it for quite a while. She was young and clean, the cleanest woman in the village: they said it must have been because of her great cleanliness. (37) *

Ginzburg remarked in one of her essays that she would like to write a book called Vicende, “Event.” “Events” would be more appropriate, or “Vicissitudes.” She’s done precisely that in both these novellas — it’s one damn thing after another, a chronicle of interwoven lives. But Famiglia has the more sophisticated shape. The Son of Man: the seriousness of having "grown up" with war; earlier generations still think to older, better times; but those who have grown up with war cannot forget and always worry it can happen again. (1946) Reading Natalia Ginzburg” introduces the general reader to Ginzburg’s life and writing; it explores the texts, voices, bodies, and spaces that define her style and subject matter; and highlights the work of her translators. It constructs an accessible scaffolding with multiple points of view and multiple points of entry. Anyone who is a parent will be familiar with the Greek chorus of elders who punctuate every moment with their admonitions to cherish it as it will be gone from you before you know it. (You almost feel their absence in this essay, however, do they not exist in Italy? Instead, the townspeople say things like “what sin did they commit?” when she takes the children outside for their daily walk, they teach them songs about being eaten alive.) There is a shared implicit understanding that surrounds the domestic, that one must enjoy it, because one must anticipate the future self regarding the present self as ignorantly living the best moments of their life, even though that moment might be emblemized by the time you spend staring at the ceiling. Natalia Ginzburg ( Italian: [nataˈliːa ˈɡintsburɡ], German: [ˈɡɪntsbʊʁk]; née Levi; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Most of her works were also translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States.The experiences that she and her husband had during the war altered her perception of her identification as a Jew. She thought deeply about the questions aroused by the war and the Holocaust, dealing with them in fiction and essays. She became supportive of Catholicism, arousing controversy among her circle, because she believed that Christ was a persecuted Jew. [5] She opposed the removal of crucifixes in public buildings but her purported conversion to Catholicism is controversial and most sources still consider her an "atheist Jewess." [6]

Beginning in 1950, when Ginzburg married again and moved to Rome, she entered the most prolific period of her literary career. During the next 20 years, she published most of the works for which she is best known. She and Baldini were deeply involved in the cultural life of the city.In 1950, Ginzburg married again, to Gabriele Baldini, a scholar of English literature. They lived in Rome. He died in 1969.