Darkness: Fiction (Italia Series) [Hardcover]

Dacia Maraini (Author), Martha King (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Italia Series | Publication Date: October 2002

Cribbing from the crime pages of Italian newspapers, Dacia Maraini creates in Darkness a memorable cast of characters for whom la dolce vita is merely a pipe dream. Among them is 12-year-old Viollca, an Albanian immigrant sold into prostitution by her parents, and Tano, a boy who brings charges of abuse against his father. Connecting the stories is Adele-Sofia, a tenderhearted police commissioner with nerves of steel. In spare, lyrical prose, Darkness illuminates Rome’s underbelly with courage and compassion. Maraini, winner of Italy's prestigious literary award, the Strega Prize, is one of the most important writers in Italian and feminist literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A 12-year-old Albanian girl is sold into prostitution in Italy; a boy is duped by a man who pretends he is a pigeon; an eight-year-old girl is forced by her grandmother to service an old man. Most of the 12 stories in Italian writer Dacia Maraini's chilling collection Darkness involve the betrayal of children by the adults charged with caring for them. Alicetta, a schizophrenic girl, is given baths late at night by a hospital orderly armed with sedatives; Tano, a tough 11-year-old, denounces his father for rape many times, but no one believes him. In spare, luminous prose, Maraini evokes the wary innocence of abused children and the perversity, confusion or stupidity of their parents and guardians. Linking most of the stories is Insp. Adele Sofia, who sucks on licorice drops as she ponders her cases. This is a moving, gracefully written collection.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In a dozen short stories inspired by crime coverage in Italian newspapers, Maraini drives home two crucial points about child rape and murder. The first is that neglectful and corrupt parents deserve a great deal of blame in most child-abuse and abduction cases. The second is that Western nations--and the officials who serve as their instruments of justice--are too often willing to ignore pleas for help from young victims. As terrible as the fates that befall the children in Darkness--an 11-year-old girl is sold into prostitution; an 11-year-old boy files several police reports in a vain attempt to stop his father from raping him and his siblings--the true horror for the reader comes from comprehending how complicit society is in these acts. It's far easier, it seems, to ignore the possibility that orderlies are repeatedly violating an institutionalized little girl than it is to acknowledge that such evils take place every day. In these stark tales, Maraini illuminates truths about the issue that television ignores in its missing-kid-of-the-week coverage. As Adele Sofia, the police inspector who figures in many of the stories, comes to understand, "Children should always be believed before adults." Powerful fiction evocatively translated from the Italian. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 130 pages
• Publisher: Steerforth Press; 1 edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586420488
• ISBN-13: 978-1586420482
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,593,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Belly of the Beast, January 17, 2003

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkness: Fiction (Italia Series) (Hardcover)

Short stories on the worst Rome has to offer. A little boy gets raped and killed. Two Albanian teenagers sold into Italian Prostitution. In Africa, a nun is raped by Muslim bandits. We get inside an insane asylum, hear about the abuse by a father, and ever so much more. In all the stories we see Police Commissioner Adele Sofia at work, at times helped by Inspector Marra.

The stories are devastating because they ring so true. The author writes straight forward, not losing any time on asides or descriptions. Brute crimes, basic language.

4.0 out of 5 stars La Ragazzi, August 2, 2010

By 

Stefanie Casey (The Cultural Sojourner) "Stef" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Darkness: Fiction (Italia Series) (Hardcover)

With sharp, incisive prose, Maraini examines the unsweetened, bitter realities of life in Italia. These loosely interconnected stories are culled from actual newspaper crime reports. She adroitly imbues the facts with spirit, as she delves into psychological motivation and characteristics of the many and varied victims and perpetrators. These portraits reveal the predatory nature inherent in humanity and the vulnerabilities and exploitation of the weak. A dog-eat-dog philosophy reigns supreme in this vision of our post-modern world.