Recent scholarship has done much to rescue Messina from literary obscurity, recognizing in her powerful, understated narratives one of the most original voices in early-twentieth-century Italy. The substantial bibliography on the author (Pausini 2001, 169–76), as well as ongoing critical studies by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, will most certainly ensure Messina a long-denied but well-deserved place in the Italian canon. Messina’s works have been translated into French, Spanish, and German, yet only one novel, La casa nel vicolo (The House in the Shadows), is available in English. This current translation of a small number of her works is a modest beginning and one that will hopefully spur further interest in a writer truly worthy of international recognition.

Notes

All translations from the Italian are my own unless otherwise noted.

1. In a rare, personal testimony that appeared in the Italian literary journal “L’Italia che scrive,” Messina reflected on her first two collections, written in part while living in Mistretta: “Pettini-fini (Fine Combs) and Piccoli gorghi (Small Vortexes) were my inseparable companions as I took my first steps…. Concise pages, without adjectives; like the words of someone who lives an inner life intensely, like my own youth tempered by solitude” (Messina 1919, 158).

2. Sicilian novelist Emanuele Navarro della Miraglia elaborates on the details of stifling provincial life in Storielle siciliane (1885) and La nana (1879). Set in the fictional Sicilian town of Villamaura, La nana recounts the clandestine affair between a beautiful woman of the lower class and a young Sicilian gentleman. Once the affair is discovered, scandal ensues. “No one was really interested in confirming the facts. The important thing was that there was something to chatter about and make fun of in the long hours with nothing to do. How would life differ from the plant world in small, provincial towns if calumny, malicious gossip, and small talk, didn’t crop up every now and then to make it more interesting?” (Navarro della Miraglia 1963 [1879], 154–55).

3. In a letter to Paolina Greppi, written in 1890, Verga recounts the incident of a woman who had solicited his opinion on her manuscript: “I read it in good faith, although I must confess to you that I have never had much faith in women writers, or rather in their artistic worth, including Sand who is tiresome and excluding [Matilda] Serao, who succeeds only because she is a hermaphrodite” (Raya 1980, 157). Many in the male literary establishment shared Verga’s reservations about the abilities of women writers. Luigi Capuana’s disparaging commentary that appeared in Nuova Antologia in 1907 is particularly notable.