After the Divorce

by Grazia Deledda, Susan Ashe (Translator)

Overview

The novel begins with Costantino Ledda's conviction and sentencing for the murder of his cruel uncle. Though innocent of the crime, he accepts the guilty verdict as punishment for marrying Giovanna Era through a civil ceremony rather than an expensive church wedding. When her husband is taken away, Giovanna has no way to provide for herself, her mother, and her son, who soon dies of malnutrition. Out of desperation she divorces Costantino, according to a new law for wives of convicts, and marries a wealthy but brutish landowner. When the true murderer confesses and Costantino returns, he and Giovanna begin a forbidden and ultimately destructive affair.

Deleda's tragic story of poverty, passion, and guilt portrays the primitive and remote world of the church, pre-Christian superstitions, and laws dictated from the mainland, in her native Sardinia, where society hangs in a delicate balance. Once this order is disrupted, none of these characters can escape the spiral of destruction dictated by fate, God, and society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810112483
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	05/24/1995
Series:	European Classics
Edition description:	Translated
Pages:	174
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

GRAZIA DELEDDA (1871-1936) was born in Nuoro, Sardinia, which forms the setting for most of her fiction. In 1900 she moved to Rome with her husband, where she was commissioned to codify the folklore on her native island. Her subsequent work is informed and inspired by this research and by a keen understanding of the conflicts produced by the convergence of Christianity, strict social mores, and pagan superstition. In 1926 she became the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded in recognition of the enduring power of her work and its consistent impact on a global audience. Remarkably, her work is little known to English-speaking audiences. Northwestern University Press publishes another of her novels, Elias Portolu.

Read an Excerpt

from the rafters, rilling the room with a faint fragrance; and sacks of wool stood about on the floor. The stout woman, who was the mistress of the house, laid hold of one of these sacks, dragged it to another part of the room, and then back again to where she had found it. " Now then," said she, panting from her exertion, " do stop. What good does it do ? And why should you give up, anyhow ? What the devil, my dearie! Suppose the public prosecutor has asked for the galleys, that doesn't mean that the jury are all mad dogs like himself! " But the other only kept on crying and shaking her head, moaning: " No, no, no! " between her sobs. "Yes, yes, I tell you," urged the woman. "Get up now, and come to your mother," and, taking hold of her, she forced back her head. The action revealed a charming countenance; rosy, framed in a thick mass of tumbled black hair; the big dark eyes swollen and glistening with tears, and surmounted by heavy black eyebrows that met in the middle. " No, no," wailed Giovanna, shaking herself free. " Let me cry over my fate, Aunt Porredda." " Fate or no fate, you just get up! " " No, I won't get up! I won't get up! They'll sentence him to thirty years at the very least! Do you hear me? Thirty years! That's what they'll give him! " Porredda, female diminutive for Porru. " That remains to be seen. And after all, what is thirty years? Why, you carry on like a wildcat!" The other gave a shrill cry, and tore her hair in an access of wild despair. "Thirty years! What is thirty years!" she shrieked. " A man's whole lifetime, Aunt Por- redda! You don't know what you are talking about, Aunt Porredda! Go away, go away and leave me alone! for the love of Christ, oh,leave me to myself!" " I'm not going away," said Aunt Porredda. ...

Editorial Reviews

"[Deledda] belongs to more than just her own day. She does more than reproduce the temporary psychological condition of her period. She has a background, and she deals with something more fundamental than sophisticated feeling . . . what she does do is create the passionate complex of a primitive populace." —D.H. Lawrence

From the Publisher

The novel's English translation was first published in Great Britain by Quartet Books, Ltd. in 1985. It subtly explores individual psychology and, more particularly, what happens within a small Sardinian village when a man, imprisoned for the presumed murder of his uncle, learns that his wife is marrying another man. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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