The Little Virtues

Natalia Ginzburg

Translated by Dick Davis

Taking it Personally – Natalia Ginzburg was a 20^th Century Italian writer, activist and politician. The 11 essays in this collection were written between 1944 and 1960, when Ginzburg lived, under fascist rule, in impoverished Pizzoli and, later, in dingy, post-war London neighborhoods. Natalia’s first husband, Leone Ginzburg, was a Resistance leader who had been tortured and murdered in 1944 by the fascist police, dying in the Regina Coeli prison in Rome. Rather than focus on war or politics, these particular essays explore the personal: parenthood, friendship, worn-out shoes, writing, and silence. Each is powerful in its apparent simplicity; taken together, they create a stunning portrait of one piece, at one time, of Ginzburg’s life.