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Grazia Deledda

Cosima Paperback – September 29, 2008

by Grazia Deledda (Author), Martha King (Translator)

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Short description: "Cosima" tells the story of an aspiring writer growing up in Nuoro, Sardinia during the last decades of the nineteenth century when formal education for women was rare and literary careers unheard-of. Based on Deledda’s own life, the work describes a young woman’s struggle against the dismay and disapproval of her family and friends at her creative ambitions. Yet it also reads like a charming fable with details of family life, rural traditions and wild bandits, and it is as much a novel of memory as of character or action. Deledda’s characters are poor country folk driven by some predetermined force. Their loves are tragic, their lives as hard and as rigidly controlled as nature itself in the hills of Sardinia. Deledda creates memorable figures who play out their lives against this backdrop of mountains and bare plains, sheepfolds and vineyards. Shimmering in the distance is the sea and escape — for a few — to the Continent or America. In 1926 Grazia Deledda became the second woman and the second Italian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She wrote thirty-three novels, including "Reeds in the Wind," and many books of short stories, almost all set on Sardinia. Her work has become well known to English-speaking readers through Martha King’s translations for Italica Press.

Print length

156 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Italica Press
Publication date

September 29, 2008
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.39 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0934977062
ISBN-13

978-0934977067
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A unique and supremely satisfying portrait of the artist as a young girl." -- Belles Lettres, Spring 1990

"King's translation is crisp and clear. Grazia Deledda is one of the most important women writers of the twentieth century. [This] translation will go far in helping redress the neglect of an important feminine voice in twentieth-century narrative." -- Italica, AATI, 66.1, Spring 1989

"This autobiographical novel sets forth a young girl's struggle to break family and village traditions, become educated, and be a writer." -- Ms., May/June 1992

Cosima is the fictionalized autobiography of Grazia Deledda, the first Italian woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature (1926). Focusing on her early life in rural Sardinia, the novel mixes realism with the perceptions of young Cosima to show a world both terrible and wonderful. Cosima is part of a large family full of tragedy: her scholarly eldest brother becomes an alcoholic, her father dies, another brother manages the family interests but keeps most of the income for himself. Cosima carries on, finding beauty and learning about life. Her first story is published in a fashion magazine; encouraged, she steals a liter of oil from the cellar to pay the postage to submit her first novel manuscript, which is accepted. Her payment is a hundred copies, "and the big package plummeted into the house like a meteorite. Her mother was frightened by it, walking around it evenings with the fearful distrust of a dog that sees a strange animal." As Cosima oversees the family oil-pressing mill, she hears the stories of the peasants: "genuine people, hard-working and gentle who, even if they could get their claws on the little bit belonging to their neighbors ... would do it sparingly and then go to confession." She stops writing romances and concentrates on Sardinia - a place where myth melds with grinding reality, where a woman can fall in love with a sheep and bandits come to your door, and where everyone gossips about that strange little Cosima, who writes. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister

From the Publisher

Cosima reads like a charming fable with details of family life, folk tales and wild bandits; and it is full of vivid images of this Mediterranean landscape and its people.

From the Author

To judge by the number of her books still in print in Italy, Grazia Deledda's novels have retained their appeal and value. Perhaps one reason is that they are about a world and people that no longer exist. But also Deledda's works, despite their now exotic location and distance in time, do not seem dated. Her emphasis on character and the eternal conflicts of love, hate, and jealousy transcends time and place. (from Introduction by Martha King)

About the Author

Grazia Deledda was born in 1871 in Nuoro, Sardinia. She had a limited formal education, but was an avid reader and she published her first story in 1886 when she was fifteen, in a newspaper in Nuoro. Her stories continued to be published in one of the many fashion magazines of the late nineteenth century, Ultima Moda.

Although the dismay of her family and friends distressed her, it also strengthened her resolve to succeed. In 1899 she left Nuoro and went to Cagliari, where she met and married Palmiro Madesani. A year later they moved to Rome, where Deledda lived a quiet life writing and caring for her husband and two sons until her death in 1936, at sixty-five.

Deledda wrote thirty-three novels and many books of short stories, almost all of them set in Sardinia. Among her better-known novels are Elias Portolu, Canne al vento, La madre, and Annalena Bilsini. Grazia Cosima Deledda became, in 1926, the first Italian woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"One time, then, one of these good animals, driven by hunger, came down as far as the last house in the village and circled it all night long. Now you must know that in that house lived a young girl whose fianc, a rich sheepherder, had left one month before for southern pastures. But during the trip he became ill with pneumonia and now lay in a town far away while his men continued the journey with the flock. The girl was very unhappy. She would have liked to have joined her fianc, but her parents wouldn't allow it. And so she cried all the time and didn't sleep at night. That's why she heard the light rustling that the mouflon made outside the house. At first she was frightened, thinking it might be thieves. Then she thought perhaps her fianc was dead and his spirit, returning to the places of their happiness, was looking for her.

"So she got up and opened the window. The night was cold but clear. The moon lit the top of the mountain that sloped down to the house. And in that brightness the girl saw the mouflon rummaging here and there for food. It was a graceful animal with copper-colored fur polished by the cold, its big sweet eyes shining in the moonlight.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Italica Press; First Edition (September 29, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 156 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0934977062
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0934977067
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.39 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #521,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #41 in Italian Literary Criticism (Books)
- #6,439 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #28,035 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
22 ratings

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4 out of 5

22 global ratings

5 star		48%
4 star		18%
3 star		25%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		9%

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corinna messina

Only in English (no Italian version available).

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 5, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book is in very good conditions but if the description says "English and Italian" edition I expect to find both texts inside, while the only available one is the English version. I was disappointed because it need it for work.

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Cheryl Sigona &

Joyful Italian childhood

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 14, 2009

Verified Purchase

This is a beautifully written literary novel about a young girl growing up in Sardinia at the end of the 1800s. Cosima is Grazia Deladda's middle name. The imaginary and fantasy whims of childhood are well described. Social history of Sardinia is in the background of this novel. Sheepherders and writers are among the characters along with Cosima's family. Cosima succeeds as a writer while her family is pushing for an appropriate marriage.

7 people found this helpful

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Bif

A lovely haunting novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

The story of Cosima embedded in a world of mystery, superstition and innocence. Lovingly evokes the perspective of a creative young girl trying to make sense of a traditional and confining family and community.

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Myra Peskowitz

This is a beautifully written novella

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 3, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is a beautifully written novella. The descriptions of Cosima's developing mind as well as the descriptions of Sardinia are wonderful. It is a short read but well worth it.

One person found this helpful

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Jolene Santos

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

Great book

One person found this helpful

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Kitty Mom

The Work of a Genius, Author won the Nobel Prize in 1926

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 7, 2014

I was so fortunate to have been told about this book by a friend who grew up in Sardinia (Sardegna), Italy. The Sards are a unique people with a reputation for a wild, almost primitive history but they are certainly not uncivilized.
Grazia Deledda won the Nobel Prize for her works and I have to say that there are passages in this book, "Cosima", that are nothing but transcendent in beauty, absolutely sublime in their effect on the reader. Perhaps one of the most memorable and stunning books I have ever read for its genius, its beauty, in its description of the wild in the interior of this Island, for example, the author is practically unknown to American or English language readers.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Readsalot

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 11, 2014

Wonderful novel by the first woman to win The Nobel Prize for literature.

2 people found this helpful

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Svein Dale

Interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Read the book after having visited Nuoro. Interesting picture of life in the pre modern town as seen though the eyes of a young girl with big aspirations. Descriptive and make surroundings come alive. Caracters a bit one dimensional. Not very exciting reading.

Dianne Willcocks

A step back in time

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 9, 2013

Verified Purchase

Deledda gives us a privileged view of growing up in a particular time and place which only serves to heighten our appreciation of her as a creative figure of stature and grace

AmazonUser

Sardinien

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on August 15, 2011

Verified Purchase

+ Gibt Einblicke in die sardinische Kultur und Lebensweise, sowie Literatur. :)
- Manchmal etwas langatmiger Schreibstil, ansonsten sehr empfehlenswert!

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