Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Cespedes
Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Cespedes
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Forbidden Notebook
A Novel

Author: Alba de Céspedes, Ann Goldstein, Jhumpa Lahiri

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell

Unabridged: 10 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/17/2023

Synopsis

This is a classic domestic novel by the Italian-Cuban feminist writer Alba de Céspedes, whose work inspired contemporary writers like Elena FerranteIn this modern translation by acclaimed Elena Ferrante translator Ann Goldstein, The Forbidden Notebook centers the inner life of a dissatisfied housewife living in postwar Rome.Valeria Cossati never suspected how unhappy she had become with the shabby gentility of her bourgeois life—until she begins to jot down her thoughts and feelings in a little black book she keeps hidden in a closet. This new secret activity leads her to scrutinize herself and her life more closely, and she soon realizes that her individuality is being stifled by her devotion and sense of duty toward her husband, daughter, and son.As the conflicts between parents and children, husband and wife, and friends and lovers intensify, what goes on behind the Cossatis’ façade of middle-class respectability gradually comes to light, tearing the family’s fragile fabric apart. An exquisitely crafted portrayal of domestic life, The Forbidden Notebook recognizes the universality of human aspirations.

About Alba de Céspedes

Alba de Céspedes (1911–1997) was a bestselling Cuban-Italian feminist writer greatly influenced by the cultural developments that led to and resulted from World War II. In 1935, she was jailed for her antifascist activities in Italy. Two of her novels were also banned—Nessuno Torna Indietro (1938) and La Fuga (1940). In 1943, she was again imprisoned for her work with Radio Partigiana in Bari, where she was a Resistance radio personality known as Clorinda. After the war, she moved to Paris, where she lived until her death in 1997.

About Cassandra Campbell

Original bio sent from Cassandra: Cassandra Campbell began doing voice overs as the voice for Calvin Klein’s Italian commercials. This was followed by commercial and documentary recording in both English and Italian. She has recorded many audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie® Award nomination. As an actress and director, she has worked at the Public, the Mint, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stagewest, Theatreworks, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Millmountain Theatre, the National Shakespeare Company, and the New York Fringe Festival.  

About Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri is a London-born American author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction who has won more than a dozen awards and medals, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut short-story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Among her other honors are the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, the Addison Metcalf Award, and a National Humanities Medal. She is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on January 26, 2025

A translated and reissued 1952 novel about an Italian woman who is in her 40’s … married 23 yrs, with two adult children living at home…who buys a black notebook to write her thoughts and feelings in, and she does so for the next six months. Valeria has been raising and caring for her family and also......more

Goodreads review by Vincenzo on February 04, 2024

Una delle (poche) cose belle che sta facendo la Mondadori ultimamente è la riedizione delle opere di Alba de Céspedes. Per lungo tempo, l'unica cosa reperibile della scrittrice-giornalista-attivista italo-cubana era un Meridiano dal prezzo proibitivo, curato della professoressa Marina Zancan. Poi, n......more

Goodreads review by Claire on March 02, 2023

Absolutely loved reading this, a 42 year old Italian working wife, married with two children, one Sunday is drawn to want to purchase a notebook in a local grocery store, a shop that is only permitted to sell tobacco on a Sunday. This purchase is her first act of transgression, the shopkeeper allows......more

Quotes

“Examining a form of suppression that women recognize as global: the suppression of their thoughts.” Washington Post

“A gripping slow-burn of a book.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

“De Céspedes’ account of the alienating, confining, tenacious force of the family endures." New Inquiry (New York)

“Psychologically rich, and suffused in suspicion and suspense, Forbidden Notebook is an exquisite, tormented howl." Financial Times (London)

“This novel…[is] intoxicating to look deeply within.” New York Times Book Review

“Unapologetically restrict[es] its focus to the world of traditionally feminine concerns—home, family, romance, the convulsive desire for a prettier hat—while subtly engaging political issues." Los Angeles Review of Books

“A sly indictment of marriage and generational conflict, as relevant today as it was in postwar Italy." Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Deftly charts the widening gap between Valeria’s increasingly desperate inner life and the roles she feels forced to play in…her claustrophobic domestic world.." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Goldstein’s translation invigorates a remarkable story, one that remains intensely relevant across time, cultures, and continents.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Awards

  • New York Times Notable Book of the Year
  • New York Times Book Review pick
  • Mother Jones Best Book
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