| Umbertina Contributor(s): Barolini, Helena (Author), Giunta, Edvige (Afterword by) |
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ISBN: 155861205X ISBN-13: 9781558612051 Publisher: Feminist Press OUR PRICE: $20.85 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 1998 Annotation: One of the first novels to explore Italian American women's experience and an acknowledged contemporary classic of Italian American literature, "Umbertina" tells the richly detailed story of four generations of women. The novel follows Umbertina and her descendants from her roots in a Calabrian village through a period of American assimilation, to Umbertina's great-granddaughters' efforts to resolve the dilemma of their Italian American identity. When first published in 1979, the "Philadelphia Inquirer" called it "an important novel for these times. . . . Through a dazzling interplay of American and Italian characters in both countries, Helen Barolini delineates the major concerns of all thinking American ethnics." This is no less true today, as this republication restores "Umbertina" to a reading public newly attuned to the complexities of cultural inheritance and identity. "An ambitious saga which spans the history and probes some of the tensions of the Italian American . . . . panoramic, descriptive, and solidly crafted."-"Publisher's Weekly" For course use in: ethnic literature, ethnic studies, gender studies, Italian American literature, literature of immigration, 20th-century U.S. literature Helen Barolini's other works include the novel "Love in the Middle Ages" and "Chiaroscuro: Essays of Identity," She conceived and edited the volume "The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian-American Women," winner of an American Book Award and a Susan Koppelman Award of the American Culture Association. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 98044374 |
| Physical Information: 1.18" H x 5.36" W x 8.42" (1.40 lbs) 464 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - Italian - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Topical - Adolescence/Coming of Age |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The "panoramic, descriptive, and solidly crafted" historical novel of immigration, womanhood, and the feminist ideals of self-reliance and self-confidence (Publishers Weekly). This sweeping, multi-generational novel begins in southern Italy's Calabria region in the late 1800s, as Umbertina--the wife of a simple farmer--persuades her husband to emigrate to the United States to pursue its promise of hope and freedom for their three children. Through years of struggle on New York City's Lower East Side and then in a growing upstate New York town, it is Umbertina's determination, ingenuity, and business sense that propel the family into financial success and security--leaving her daughters and granddaughters free to sort out their identities both as Italian Americans and as women. "Through a dazzling interplay of American and Italian characters in both countries, Helen Barolini delineates the major concerns of all thinking American ethnics." This is no less true today, as this republication restores Umbertina to a reading public newly attuned to the complexities of cultural inheritance and identity (The Philadelphia Inquirer). |