SOURCE: O'Healy, Anne-Marie. “Natalia Ginzburg and the Family.” Canadian Journal of Italian Studies 9, no. 32 (1986): 21-36.

In the following essay, O'Healy discusses the theme of family in Ginzburg's work.

Natalia Ginzburg has been described by Cesare Garboli as “la scrittrice più femminile e meno femminista che esista.”¹ If we accept the traditional assumption that one of the typical characteristics of women writers is an absorbing preoccupation with family relationships, then Garboli's statement about the strikingly “female” quality of the author's work can be accepted. With regard to the more complex and controversial question of feminism, however, his contention is debatable. Although in recent years Natalia Ginzburg has declared herself opposed to the women's movement², there is a contrast between her current denial of feminist sympathies, and the sensitive portrayal of the alienation of women found in her early novels. Few writers have described as poignantly as Ginzburg the situation...