This hybrid work-part epistolary novel, part essay, part biography-struck a deep chord in me. Maraini, among the most outspoken and important authors in Italy today, posits a series of connections and disconnections between author and reader, the Middle Ages and modernity, possession and renunciation. Jane Tylus's translation is resonant and immensely readable. -- Jhumpa Lahiri * author of Whereabouts *
The life of Italian saint Clare of Assisi gets a clever feminist reimagining in this biography-cum-epistolary novel by playwright Maraini (Voices)...Creatively structured and thoughtfully executed, this genre-smashing blend of history and fiction is delightfully original. * Publishers Weekly *
This book is not only about the life of Saint Clare, it is a women's view of the world, an engaging dialogue between the writer and a mysterious reader, the past and the present, faith and reason, and between the 'happy' and 'unhappy' bodies. It is a very inspiring read. -- Amara Lakhous * author of Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio *
In her passionate book marked by dreams and ongoing questions, Dacia Maraini delivers a gorgeous portrait of Clare of Assisi, who succeeded in giving life to a revolutionary language and overturning the rules of her time in order to follow one rule, her own. -- Corriere Adriatico
This intimate and provocative book is the story of an encounter, between a great woman writer who has made words the very instrument with which she can tell a story about reality, and an intelligent, determined woman to whom the use of the word was denied. -- Enza Cavallaro * Il Quotidiano di Calabria *
As with Francis, for Clare the profound significance of poverty is that one has the freedom to invent one's own destiny. With this book, in part an exchange of letters with a mysterious interlocutor, in part a diary, Dacia Maraini has added a precious, missing link to her feminist writings, all the more convincing for its distance from any form of philosophical or political abstraction. -- Emanuele Trevi * Corriere della Sera *