Giovanni Verga The Malavoglias review, recensie en informatie over de roman over Sicilië uit 1881 van de Italiaanse schrijver. Op 22 september 2025 verschijnt bij Vagabond Voices de Engelse vertaling van de Siciliaanse roman I Malavoglia van Giovanni Verga, de van het eiland Sicilië, Italië afkomstige schrijver. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van de roman verkrijgbaar.

Giovanni Verga The Malavoglias review en recensie

Als er in de media een boekbespreking, review of recensie verschijnt van The Malavoglias, de roman van Giovanni Verga, dan besteden we er op deze pagina aandacht aan.

The Malavoglias

• Auteur: Giovanni Verga (Italië)
• Soort boek: Sicilië roman
• Origineel: I Malavoglia (1881)
• Engelse vertaling: Allan Cameron
• Uitgever: Vagabond Voices
• Verschijnt: 22 september 2025
• Omvang: 316 pagina’s
• Uitgave: paperback
• Prijs: £ 14.50
• Boek bestellen bij: Amazon 

Flaptekst van de Siciliaanse roman van Giovanni Verga uit 1881

Giovanni Verga’s masterful portrayal of a family of Sicilian fishermen in the late nineteenth century is the story of an ancient society in which both egalitarianism and hierarchy coexist, partly because everyone is on the brink of poverty to some extent. It is also a society undergoing irreversible change as the free market encroaches and brings with it not more equality but more hierarchy based on dubious practices which replace an ingrained and functional morality with a moral vacuum. This process has not been completed and the book could be considered a warning to future generations.

However this is not a judgemental novel and it follows the precepts of verismo, the Italian version of realism influenced by French naturalism but also distinctive, particularly in Verga’s case. The author also adopted the recent practice of free indirect discourse but often skilfully turned it into a choral voice representing the values of the society he depicts.

Sicily has often attracted outside attention, but mostly its society and complexities have been misrepresented. The Malavoglias is not only a magnificent classic unjustly ignored in the Anglosphere but also an extraordinary and detached examination of a particular society suffering from a moral malaise not so different from our own, although ours is a malaise of declining affluence. It therefore has as much to say about the human condition today as it had to the very different society depicted in these pages.

Verga’s prose is rightly acknowledged as distinctive and compelling. This innovative novel embraces readers by treating them as locals who know the village, its people but not the story. It observes that society from inside that society.

Giovanni Verga was born on 2 September 1840 in Catania, Sicily, Italia. His full name is Giovanni Carmelo Verga di Fontanabianca. He was one of Italy’s leading nineteenth-century novelists, particularly famous for his novels Mastro don Gesualdo and I Malavoglia, and his short story collection, Vita dei campi. Born in Catania, Sicily, he lived much of his adult life on the mainland in Florence for a few years and in Milan for two decades. He was the leading figure in the Italian realist movement called verismo, and was eventually made a Senator for Life in the Kingdom of Italy, though he wasn’t that interested and never went to take his seat in parliament. Apart from a brief service in Garibaldi’s National Guard, he devoted his entire life to literature and was a prolific writer. He died at the age of 81 on 27 January 1922 in Catania. His works are still to be found in almost all Italian bookshops.

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

• Italiaanse schrijvers en schrijfsters
• Boeken uit 1881