Portrait of a family with a fat daughter / Margherita Giacobino ; translated by Judith Landry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Giacobino, Margherita, 1952- author.

Contributor:

Landry, Judith, translator.

English Centre of International PEN, sponsoring body.

Standardized Title:

Ritratto di famiglia con bambina grassa. English.

Language:

English

Italian

Genre:

Autobiographical fiction.

Fictional autobiographies.

Physical Description:

301 pages ; 20 cm

Place of Publication:

Sawtry, Cambs : Dedalus, 2017.

Language Note:

English translation of Italian text.

Summary:

"Portrait of a Family with a Fat Daughter tells the story of four generations of a peasant family living outside Turin between the late nineteenth century and the boom years of the 1950s, as they clamber out of grinding rural poverty into the sixties world of frozen fish and fridges. The author's grandmother emigrates to California and returns to Italy semi-paralysed after a mishap as she is giving birth. When her father dies the author's eight-year-old mother returns to Italy, to be brought up by a family she does not know, to become Italian again and ultimately to marry a captivating 'man-boy' whose fecklessness is grippingly described, as is his time in a German prison camp in World War II. She runs a small shop which gradually expands, lifting the family out of the working class; her daughter, Margherita, always a conscientious student, reared by this extended matriarchal family, becomes the writer of this book." -- Provided by publisher

Notes:

First published in Italian: Milano : Mondadori, 2015.

ISBN:

9781910213483

1910213489

OCLC:

1019470510