For years Elisa has lived in an imaginary world of her own but when her guardian dies, the young Elisa feels compelled to confront the truth of her family's tortured and dramatic history by telling the story of her mother, Anna, and grandmother, Cesira. Elisa is a seductive, if less than reliable, spinner of stories, and the reader is drawn into a tale of intrigue, treachery and self-delusion, which, as it proceeds, is increasingly revealed to be an exploration of a legacy of political and social injustice.

First published in 1948, Elsa Morante's debut novel won the Viareggio Prize and earned her the lasting admiration of writers such as Italo Calvino and Natalia Ginzburg.

Translated by Jenny McPhee

Elsa Morante (Author)
Elsa Morante was an Italian novelist, poet, and translator. She was born in 1912 in Rome and wrote her debut novel, Lies and Sorcery, while hiding in the countryside during the German occupation of Italy in the Second World War. Alongside Lies and Sorcery, which won the Viareggio Prize, Morante's novels include Arturo's Island, which was awarded the Strega Prize, and History: A Novel which became a national bestseller in Italy on publication. She died in 1985.

Jenny McPhee (Translator)
Jenny McPhee is a translator and the author of the novels The Center of Things, No Ordinary Matter, and A Man of No Moon. She is the director of the Center for Applied Liberal Arts at New York University and lives in New York.