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Winner of the 2022 ALTA Italian Prose in Translation Award
Silvana La Spina gives voice to Penelope and provides her with an apt forum to narrate her story of abuse and manipulation - despite her royal status. As other queens, from Mary Stuart to Marie Antoinette, her side of the story deserves to be imagined and heard if we want the course of history to begin a new path.
About the author
Silvana La Spina was born in 1945 in the province of Padua to a Venetian mother and Sicilian father. This split cultural heritage characterizes La Spina's life as well as her literary oeuvre. Author of over a dozen books of fiction and non-fiction, La Spina's publications include L'ultimo treno da Catania (1992), Quando Marte è in Capricornio (1994), La creata Antonia (2001), La mafia spiegata ai miei figli (ed anche ai figli degli altri) (2006), La continentale (2014), L'uomo che veniva da Messina (2015), and, most recently Sorella detective (2020). Over the course of her literary career, La Spina has contributed articles on cultural and literary topics to numerous Italian newspapers; and, in 1993, La Spina received the prestigious Premio letterario Piero Chiara for her novel Scirocco. Invested in examining a logic of domination and propelled by a desire for creative resistance and change, La Spina's writings represent a unique and important voice in Italian literature of late 20th and early 21st centuries.
