Brought up as a servant in the austere household of an uncle, Marianna is now a woman of property. But at thirty, she knows little of life. For others in the town of Nuoro and its surrounding hill farms, Sardinia is a harsh and unforgiving place. When she meets a former companion in service, now forced into banditry to support his family, her calm existence is turned upside down. The defining moment of her life has come. Does Marianna love for Simone Sole triumph over her common sense, social convention and what is expected of her by her family?
Grazia Deledda explores the layers of temptation and doubt in a novel of Sardinian life coloured with her own intimate knowledge of its beauties and dangers.
Over de auteur
Graham Anderson was born in London. After reading French and Italian at Cambridge, he worked on the books pages of City Limits and reviewed fiction for The Independent and The Sunday Telegraph. As a translator, he has developed versions of French plays, both classic and contemporary, for the NT and the Gate Theatre, with performances both here and in the USA. Publications include The Figaro Plays (Beaumarchais) and A Flea in Her Ear (Feydeau). For Dedalus he has translated Sappho by Alphonse Daudet, Chasing the Dream and A Woman's Affair by Liane de Pougy, This was the Man (Lui) by Louise Colet and The Woman, This Man(Elle et Lui) by George Sand. His translations of Grazia Deledda's short story collections The Queen of Darkness and The Christmas Present and her novel Marianna Sirca were published by Dedalus in 2023. He is currently translating The Celestial City by Diego Marani and The Ridiculolus Age by Margherita Giacobino for Dedalus to be published in February 2024.
His own short fiction has won or been short-listed for three literary prizes. He is married and lives in Oxfordshire.