Presented by the Dante Alighieri Society of BC, with the support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto.
The next meeting of the Italian Book Club will take place on Tuesday, November 16 at 8:30PM EDT / 5:30PM PDT.
The group will discuss the novel Five Stories of Ferrara (Cinque storie ferraresi) by Giorgio Bassani (Rizzoli, 2020). Benedetta Diamanti will coordinate.
Please note that the discussion will be in Italian. An intermediate to advanced level of Italian is recommended.
To register, please email info@dantesocietybc.ca.
The Italian Book Club meets ONLINE on ZOOM once a month.
Meet other bibliophiles, share ideas and deepen your understanding of Italian literature, history and culture.
The Italian Book Club is FREE and open to all those in Canada interested in friendly and thought-provoking discussions of Italian books: fiction, non-fiction, classics, prize-winners, etc.
If you are new to the Italian Book Club and wish to join the meetings, please email info@dantesocietybc.ca to register and receive the MEETING LINK.
Schedule and more info: www.dantesocietybc.ca/bookclub.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This splendid collection of short stories (Lida Mantovani, The Walk Before Dinner, A Tombstone in Via Mazzini, The Last Years of Clelia Trotti and A night in ’43) earned Giorgio Bassani the 1956 Strega Prize. The “five stories” have a sort of painful awareness and an unforgettable setting in common: Ferrara, a provincial town that here becomes the symbol of an entire nation, wrapped in the darkness of fascism. Bassani takes us into the soul of these people, “for the rest, almost always for good”: the teen single mother Lida Mantovani; Doctor Elia Corcos in constant conflict with his wife; concentration camp survivor Geo Josz; the old socialist Clelia Trotti, left to die in prison … Different yet similar stories, united by the difficulty with which the protagonists adapt to an Italian province that on the one hand comforts, on the other rejects anything that is not its own. People included.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Giorgio Bassani was born in 1916. From 1938 onwards he became involved in various anti-fascist activities for which he was imprisoned in 1943. His works include The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, and Five Stories of Ferrara (Within the Walls), which won the Strega Prize. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis was awarded the Viareggio Prize in 1962 and was made into a feature film.