Family and Borghesia

Family and Borghesia brings together two novellas by the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg, translated for English-language readers by Daunt Books Publishing.

In Family, an architect named Carmine reflects, during an illness, on his earlier relationship with Ivana, a translator with whom he once had a child; reunited as friends decades later, the two confront old regrets against the backdrop of postwar Italy.

In Borghesia, a woman named Ilaria manages a household shared with her brother-in-law, husband and teenage daughter; what begins as light domestic comedy, centred on her cats, gradually darkens into a quiet study of a constrained life.

Written in Ginzburg's characteristically spare, restrained prose, both stories explore how family ties and memory shape ordinary lives, uncovering currents of unhappiness and isolation beneath the surface.