Back in 2o19, I was living in Tanzania. The week before Christmas, my husband and I were visiting family and friends in the UK. On one of the final days of our trips, I went Christmas shopping, the final stop was in Daunt Books in Marylebone, London, I was just about to pay for my hoard when I spotted this book: The Little Virtues. I had spotted it some months ago during my previous trip to London, but this time, I decided to buy it. What a treat.

Daunt Books had published a selection of “unheard of or perhaps better put, forgotten classics”  in 2018. A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid and  The Little Virtues are two of the many books that have been published by DB. I look forward to looking back at their 2018 catalogue to see what other gems I can discover.

In a Nutshell:

A wise, dazzling, funny and intriguing collection of essays.

An Observation:

Reading Natalia Ginzburg’s work is like drinking a delicious hot chocolate, a simple comforting pleasure. Yet it would be a hot chocolate with an edge as there is an edge to Ginzburg’s work, a joyful edge. Of Ginzburg, Tessa Hadley said “Ginzburg’s beautiful words have such solidity and simplicity. I read her with joy and amazement.” I would agree.

Quotes:

“We were in exile: our city was a long way off, and so were books, friends.”

“England is a country which has always shown itself ready to welcome foreigners.”

“We show ourselves for what we are, imperfect in the hope that our children will not resemble us but be stronger and better than us.”

“A love of life begets a love of life.”

Details:

Book: The Little Virtues

Author: Natalia Ginzburg

Translator: Dick Davis

Publisher: Daunt Books

Publishing Date: 19/04/2018

Author: Natalia Ginzburg

Natalia Ginzburg was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1916 and died in 1991.  The Little Virtues wasn’t her only piece of work, She had also written dozens of essays, plays, short stories and novels including Voices in the Evening, All Our Yesterdays and  Family Lexicon, for which she was awarded the  prestigious Strega prize in 1963. She was a political activist and served in the Italian parliament from 1983-1987.

Between 1944 and 1960, Natalia Ginzburg  wrote The Little Virtues, a collection of eleven essays, it is a poignant portrait of Italy (and in one essay, England) in the twentieth century, which is beautifully written and the translation by Dick Davis is exquisite.

Translator: Dick Davis

Dick Davis, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has translated from Persian and Italian and he has also written his own poetry. Davis has been hailed by the TLS as ‘our finest translator of Persian poetry’, and retired in 2012 from the Ohio State University where he was Professor of Persian and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Born in 1945 in Portsmouth, his academic career has included teaching posts at the Universities of Tehran, Durham, Newcastle and California. In 2009 he published At Home and Far From Home: Poems on Iran and Persian Culture. 

A bit about me!

Here I am with my husband visiting one of our favourite places in the world, the Westonbirt Arboretum!

A bit about me, my name is Jess Andoh-Thayre. I am from Brixton, South London. I currently live in Cambodia. Before living here in Cambodia, I lived in Tanzania with my husband, who is a diplomat. I have also lived in Chile and Spain. I am a French, Spanish and English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher. I recently qualified as a SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator). After taking three years off to have a baby in a pandemic and also retrain, I have just returned to work as an Elementary Learning Support Teacher.