Author(s): Natalia Ginzburg

Novel | Western Europe | Translated fiction

'If Ferrante is a friend, Ginzburg is a mentor.' - Guardian

The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: 'I shot him between the eyes.' As the tale - a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and revenge - proceeds, the narrator's murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability.

Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg's writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don't more wives kill their husbands?

Author Biography: Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) was born in Palermo, Sicily. She wrote dozens of books including the essay collection The Little Virtues, and the novels Happiness, as Such, Voices in the Evening and the Strega Prize-winning Family Lexicon, all published by Daunt Books. She was involved in political activism throughout her life and served in the
Italian parliament from 1983 to 1987.