Fragola e panna and Natalia Ginzburg

Hear Natalia Ginzburg's play, Fragola e panna on Radioscrigno. It's part of their Recitando, recitando podcast, so I'm not sure how long it will be available for download.

If you are looking for some criticism and interpretation, I would suggest investigating JSTOR (available from many libraries) which can search through hundreds of journals to find articles. In 2000, the book, Natalia Ginzburg : a voice of the twentieth century, was published by the University of Toronto Press. See the chapter entitled, Feminism and the 'absurd' in two plays by Natalia Ginzburg, by Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, which discusses the play in some detail. Unfortunately, the book is pricey ($58), but it is available from over 200 libraries through interlibrary loan.

Please take not that Fragola e panna is part of a collection of plays by Ginzburg, Ti ho sposato per allegria e altre commedie. I believe that it might be out of print, but I found numerous secondhand copies online as well as being held in over 140 libraries.

Listen to part 1.
Listen to part 2.

You can download it here: http://www.radio.rai.it/radioscrigno/podlista.cfm?id=930

Note: I'm not sure how long the links will remain valid.

edit Dec. 17 2007: I erred in my post. All of the plays of Natalia Ginzburg can be purchased from Einaudi (475 p.) under the title Tutto il teatro - edited by Domenico Scarpa. There are some introductory notes and analysis at the end of the book and some in the beginning that may prove useful. It's a good text, and it does contain Fragola e panna.

Natalia Ginzburg's 'Lessico Famigliare'

Grab your copy of Ginzberg's Lessico Famigliare and the head to this web site and hear a reading of the entire work -- all 22 episodes. Terzo Anello -- Ad Alta Voce is a popular show on Rai Radio 3.

More Moravia!

On Fahrenheit, there is an audio special on Moravia to celebrate 100 years since the birth of this Roman author. You can listen to it by clicking here (this should open up real player; 14 min, 18 sec).

If you want more information, go to Fahrenheit.

Radioscrigno

Check out Radioscrigno from Rai.

What is Radioscrigno? A project form Rai where you can get in touch with Italy's past by listening to old recordings and concerts, interviews and readings. You can even listen to a reading of Moravia's Romolo e Remo - one of his Racconti Romani. I listened to it this morning, following along with the story, and it was interesting to hear the words read. It gave the short story more life.

Check it out.

Fahrenheit

If you are interested in contemporary Italian literature, I would recommend that you check out the following site:

http://www.radio.rai.it/radio3/fahrenheit/index.cfm

Fahrenheit is a radio program on Rai Radio 3. While you might be thinking that Rai is just full of boring programs that no one ever listens to, I think that this is an exception. During the week (Mon-Fri), they interview an author of a new book that has been published or is about to be published. If you can't catch the show live on Rai Radio 3, you can listen from the podcasts (which is how I usually get to it). The podcast has referred me to a few interesting new titles, and they've had some interesting authors. They don't always discuss Italian books either -- they also discuss books translated from other languages into Italian. They recently interviewed or possibly replayed an interview of Ian McEwan on his book, Chesel Beach.

Their web site is full of information and news. It's all in Italian and will probably require intermediate skills or better to be able to understand and navigate through the site.

Pier Vittorio Tondelli on Wikipedia

Last year a friend of mine put me onto the writings of Pier Vittorio Tondelli. I find his style a bit difficult to read at times, but after some practice and diligence I managed to read two of his works: Rimini and Dinner Party.

Dinner Party was very interesting. It's a play so that's probably why I found it easier to read since the way that it is written is probably the way that one speaks - without too many complicated words. The play is...bizarre to say the least and, in my opinion, is pretty revolutionary for its time with lots of interest things going on - adultery, homosexual themes as well as family dynamics. I enjoyed Rimini, as well.

I didn't know much about the author and was curious. Like many people, I trotted over to Wikipedia to see what I could learn only to find that his entry had been deleted on Wikipedia.com which houses all of the English language articles. There is a good entry on the Italian version of Wikipedia. Anyway, I recreated the English version. Over the past couple of months, I have been trying to work on a short biography to add to the site. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time due to work and other personal commitments to finish it. I hope that over the Christmas break that I can get some more of my research done. There is very little about this author in English so I've had to read mostly everything in Italian. I invite anyone who enjoys the works on Tondelli to improve upon my Wikipedia entry. I think that I have added enough links, text and other information to prevent the article from being deleted again.

Please check it out and let me know what you think.