Her Husband

One of the twentieth centurys greatest literary artists and winner of the Nobel prize in 1934, Luigi Pirandello wrote the novel Her Husband in 1911, before he produced any of the well-known plays with which his name is most often associated today. Her Husbandtranslated here for the first time into Englishis a profoundly entertaining work, by turns funny, bitingly satirical, and tinged with anguish. As important as any of the other works in Pirandellos oeuvre, it portrays the complexities of male/female relations in the context of a newly emerging, small but vocal Italian feminist movement. Evoking in vivid detail the literary world in Rome at the turn of the century, Her Husband tells the story of Silvia Roncella, a talented young female writer, and her husband Giustino Boggiolo. The novel opens with their arrival in Rome after having left their provincial southern Italian hometown following the success of Silvias first novel, the rather humorously titled House of Dwarves. As his wifes self-appointed (and self-important) promoter, protector, counselor, and manager, Giustino becomes the primary target of Pirandellos satire. But the couples relationshipand their dual careeris also complicated by a lively supporting cast of characters, including literary bohemians with avant-garde pretensions and would-be aristocratic esthetes who are all too aware of the newly acquired power of journalists and the publishing establishment to make or break their careers. Having based many of the charactersincluding Silvia and Giustinoon actual literary acquaintances of his, Pirandello reacted to the novels controversial reception by not allowing it to be reprinted after the first printing sold out. Not until after his death were copies again made available in Italy. Readers will find Her Husband eerily evocative of the present in myriad waysnot the least of which is contemporary societys ongoing transformation wrought by the changing roles of men and women, wives and husbands.