La Madre

Dedalus European Classics

General Editor: Timothy Lane

La Madre
(The Woman and the Priest)

Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

24–26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

email: [email protected]

www.dedalusbooks.com

ISBN printed book 978 1 912868 63 6

ISBN ebook 978 1 912868 64 3

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Publishing History

First published in Italy in 1920

First English translation in 1922

First published by Dedalus in 1987

New edition in 2021

Introduction & chronology copyright © Eric Lane 1987

Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Italian Literature from Dedalus

Italian Language Literature in translation is an important part of the Dedalus list.

Titles currently available include:

Senso (and other stories) – Camillo Boito

L’Innocente (the Victim) – Gabriele D’Annunzio

La Madre (The Woman and the Priest) – Grazia Deledda

Cleopatra Goes to Prison – Claudia Durastanti

Portrait of a Family with a Fat Daughter – Margherita Giacobino

The Price of Dreams – Margherita Giacobino

God’s Dog – Diego Marani

The Interpreter – Diego Marani

The Last of the Vostyachs – Diego Marani

New Finnish Grammar – Diego Marani

Venice Noir – Isabella Panfido

The Mussolini Canal – Antonio Pennacchi

The Late Mattia Pascal – Luigi Pirandello

The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio – Luigi Pirandello

I Malavoglia – Giovanni Verga

Mastro Don Gesualdo – Giovanni Verg

Short Sicilian Novels – Giovanni Verga

Sparrow, Temptation & Cavalleria Rusticana – Giovanni Verga

INTRODUCTION TO GRAZIA DELEDDA’S LA MADRE
(The Woman and the Priest) or The Mother

Sardinia, like the neighbouring island of Corsica is mainly mountainous and heavily wooded. Apart from a few flat areas on the coast, it is thinly populated. The port city of Cagliari and Sassari are its main centres, where the culture of the Italian mainland predominates. Inland, away from the luxury beach resorts of the Costa Smeralda, life is still lived in isolated communities and based on agriculture. Flocks of goats and women dressed in black are everywhere. One does not have to imagine too hard to conjure up the past. Italian is a foreign language, and is spoken with a fullness and clarity which makes it easier to understand for the visitor than on the mainland. The local language Sard is closer to Latin than Italian, so the two do not easily blend together. The cooking and the wine are excellent and distinctive. As a student I gained a taste here for horse steak, which appears frequently on the menu, and a desire to penetrate the enclosed world of the inland villages. The nearest I came to discovering this hidden world of the past was in the novels of Grazia Deledda.