Elsa Morante

The spellbinding debut novel that launched the career of one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century. Elisa—orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales—has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past, weaving the tale of her...

A representative text of a milieu marked by student protests and aspirations for moral and political renewal. First published in Italian in 1968, The World Saved by Kids was written in the aftermath of deep personal change and in the context of what Elsa Morante called the “great youth movement exploding against the funereal machinations of the organized contemporary world.”...

The first unabridged English translation of the electrifying novel of secrets and delusions, from one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century. Elisa—orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales—has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past,...