Italy

La Madre
by Grazia Deledda

This novel, set in Sardinia at a time when Italian was a foreign language, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. With a claustrophobic atmosphere that readers of Elana Ferrantes might find familiar, the story unfolds over the course of 48 hours, to examine the clash of human instinct versus rigid social conventions.

Translated by MG Steegman
Dedalus, 2021
First published in 1920
ISBN 9781912868636