Historical fiction books from Italy
Recommended historical fiction books (10)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from Italy for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
Accabadora by Michela Murgia EN
Description:
The award winning Accabadora is an exceptional English–language debut, written with intriguing subtlety reflecting a sensual picture of local Italian life and death in villages during the 1950's. A time where family ties and obligations still decide much of life's ebb and flow. A must read for those who love a touch of the unusual. Formerly beautiful and at one time betrothed to a fallen soldier, Bonaria Urrai has a long held covenant with the dead. Midwife to the dying, easing their suffering and sometimes ending it, she is revered and feared in equal measure as the village's Accabadora. When... continue
2.
Description:
Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio.
3.
Der Name der Rose by Umberto Eco DE
Description:
Daß er in den Mauern der prächtigen Benediktinerabtei an den Hängen des Apennin das Echo eines verschollenen Lachens hören würde, das hell und klassisch herüberklingt aus der Antike, damit hat der englische Franziskanermönch William von Baskerville nicht gerechnet. Zusammen mit Adson von Melk, seinem etwas tumben, jugendlichen Adlatus, ist er in einer höchst delikaten politischen Mission unterwegs. Doch in den sieben Tagen ihres Aufenthalts werden die beiden mit kriminellen Ereignissen und drastischen Versuchungen konfrontiert: Ein Mönch ist im Schweineblutbottich ertrunken, ein anderer aus de... continue
6.
Happiness, as Such by Natalia Ginzburg EN
Description:
The hauntingly beautiful epistolary novel from "a glowing light of modern Italian literature" (New York Times Book Review) Longlisted for the PEN Translation Award
7.
The Betrothed : I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni EN
Description:
“The great plague novel.” —The New Yorker Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters—the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister "Unnamed"—in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion, The Betrothed... continue
9.
The Chimera by Sebastiano Vassalli EN
Description:
Offering a study of hypocrisy and evil, a comic novel of religious corruption and witchcraft in seventeenth-century Italy chronicles the fate of a young orphan named Antonia, who is burned at the stake in the town of Novara in 1610.
10.
The Seamstress of Sardinia by Bianca Pitzorno EN
Description:
An immersive and vividly written historical novel for anyone who loved Ferrante's Neapolitan novels or Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.