A Music Behind the Wall: Selected Stories, Vol. 1

The ten stories in this first of two volumes in English translation touch nearly all of the modes Anna Maria Ortese developed during her long and productive creative life, from the early "magical realism" to the late work which lies, as the translator notes, "at the edge of fable . . .[where] one listens to an otherworldly tale while casting a vigilant, questioning eye about the room in which it is being told." Ortese plumbs the strangeness of the world, its mysterious reality, and the dramatic emotion containing within the solitary imagination. She is truly a unique writer, and is rightly considered one of the great figures of 20th century Italian literature.