Picador Books
3 total works
The story of a family, bringing to life the forgotten heart of Italy, the Mezzogiorno, weakened by emigration, silenced by fascism. This is the imaginary memoir of an Italian family, from 1909 to the 1930s, with a framework in the present day. The narrator is drawn into the passion and prejudice of her own invention, and we see how memory, like folk memory distorts and mythologizes. Marina Warner is best known for her non-fictional work - "The Dragon Empress", "Alone of All Her Sex - The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary", "Joan of Arc" and "Monuments and Maidens" (Winner of the 1986 Fawcett Prize).
First published in 1976, the author demonstrates a long-lived and continuing process which has been, and still is, used to the detriment of women as she shares her perspective insights into the many-layered construction the fully developed cult of the Virgin was to become.
Marina Warner explores the tradition of personifying liberty, justice, wisdom, charity, and other ideals and desiderata in the female form, and examines the tension between women's historic and symbolic roles. Drawing on the evidence of public art, especially sculpture, and painting, poetry, and classical mythology, she ranges over the allegorical presence of the woman in the Western tradition with a sharply observant eye and a piquant and engaging style.