In her lifetime, Anna Maria Ortese received virtually every major Italian literary award, and, in a career spanning six decades, her last works became Italian
bestsellers. Those who have read
The Iguana
know what extraordinary mysteries of human conscience and compassion Ortese's writings plumb. For several years we have been planning a fuller presentation of her work, selecting twenty stories from her many collections. These are published in two volumes,
translated and introduced by the distinguished editor of our Italian series, Henry Martin. The first volume contains stories ranging in style and mode from realistic to the frankly visionary. Yet there is a steadfastness and coherency to Ortese's tales, and something original and almost entirely foreign to American writing. Can it be quite simply this: a conviction, verging upon certitude, of the validity, even
necessity, of coincident or converging realities? To read one of Ortese's stories, which are almost impossible to describe in ordinary terms, is to tap into an unexplained circumstance, truly a condition of suspended disbelief, and to hear a voice by turns disquieting and strangely reassuring.