The Manzoni Family

Winner of the Bagutta Prize, The Manzoni Family set in ducal Italy and post-revolutionary France, captures the story of Alessandro Manzoni—celebrated Milanese nobleman, man of letters, and author of the masterpiece of nineteenth-century Italian literature, I promessi sposi (The Betrothed)—and the women of his life.
 

The dynastic tale begins with the matriarchal figure of Giulia, the mother whom the young Alessandro Manzoni found in Paris after she had abandoned him as an infant. Following her, there is Enrichetta, the woman he and his mother chose to be his wife, and the many children she had by him until her death; literary friends from the beau monde in Italy and Paris; and Alessandro's second wife, Teresa, and her children.

Against the background of Napoleonic occupation, the reestablishment of Austrian hegemony, and the stirrings of the revolutionary urge for unification and independence, Ginzburg gracefully weaves the story of the Manzoni dynasty, a family that seems to grow autonomously around the life of the writer, effortlessly incorporating the epic tumult and emotion of the age. Ginzburg explores this fascinating true story and celebrated author with the elegance that has assured her rightful place among history’s acclaimed literary titans.

Natalia Ginzburg was born in Palermo, Italy in 1916. She was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories, and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Modest and intensely reserved, Ginzburg never shied away from the traumas of history, whether writing about the Turin of her childhood, the Abruzzi countryside, or contemporary Rome—all the while approaching those traumas only indirectly, through the mundane details and catastrophes of personal life. Arcade has published several of her works, including The Little Virtues, All Our Yesterdays, and The City and the House.

Tim Parks is the author of more than twenty novels and works of nonfiction, including Europa, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His essays have appeared regularly in The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, for which he blogs. He lives in Italy.

Praise for The Manzoni Family:

"[Ginzburg] re-creates the family life of Italy's great 19th-century writer with an immediacy that grips even one who has read little or none of the work of Alessandro Manzoni."—New York Times

"The difference between this family saga and the ordinary family saga is the difference, say, between War and Peace and Dallas." —Boston Globe

"As social history, with something of the flavor and immediacy of fiction, this story of a famous family stretching from 1762 to 1907 is interesting and well done. The book skillfully stitches together biographical facts and numerous family letters." —Publishers Weekly

"Although Tolstoy maintained that 'happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' contemporary readers of this work will identify with the illnesses of children, deaths of relatives, and all-too-frequent filial requests for money that confronted Italian literary giant Alessandro Manzoni, author of I Promessi sposi. Based on the family's voluminous correspondence, Ginzburg's portrayal is personal rather than literary, focusing on Manzoni family members; but a vivid picture of 18th- and 19th-century Italy and the literary scene in 19th-century Paris also emerges." —Library Journal

"Italian novelist Ginzburg uses the epistolary technique to craft a brilliant biography of four generations of a complex, frequently tortured family . . . an extraordinarily moving and evocative book.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Original, engrossing, appalling." —Bestselling author and literary critic Mary McCarthy

Bagutta Prize

Strega Prize

Praise for The Manzoni Family:

"As social history, with something of the flavor and immediacy of fiction, this story of a famous family stretching from 1762 to 1907 is interesting and well done. The book skillfully stitches together biographical facts and numerous family letters." —Publishers Weekly

"Although Tolstoy maintained that 'happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' contemporary readers of this work will identify with the illnesses of children, deaths of relatives, and all-too-frequent filial requests for money that confronted Italian literary giant Alessandro Manzoni, author of I Promessi sposi. Based on the family's voluminous correspondence, Ginzburg's portrayal is personal rather than literary, focusing on Manzoni family members; but a vivid picture of 18th- and 19th-century Italy and the literary scene in 19th-century Paris also emerges." —Library Journal

"The difference between this family saga and the ordinary family saga is the difference, say, between War and Peace and Dallas." —Boston Globe

"Italian novelist Ginzburg uses the epistolary technique to craft a brilliant biography of four generations of a complex, frequently tortured family . . . an extraordinarily moving and evocative book.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Original, engrossing, appalling." —bestselling author and literary critic Mary McCarthy