Pleasure of Writing: Critical Essays on Dacia Maraini

Editors' Preface

Editors' Preface Dacia Maraini is one of contemporary Italy's best-known writers . An active participant in the dialogue concerning the status of women, she has never wavered in her position. Her struggles on behalf of women have made her a figure of controversy as author and as cultural critic. A prolific writer, she has been the recipient ofnumerous literary awards. Yet in spite of, orperhaps because of, her stature, Maraini's work has not received the sustained critical attentionit deserves. She has been effectively excluded from the Italian critical canon, depriving her ofa voice and-limiting the impact of her message. The Pleasure ofWriting demonstrates the currency of Maraini's thought and argues for a revision of the canon. The present study covers the whole range of Maraini's production , including novels, plays, poetry, and films. Anchored by a piece Maraini herself has contributed, these essays byan international group of Italianists advance the critical discussion of a writer -who has received inadequate attention from the scholarly community. Dacia Maraini has prepared, specifically for this volume, "Reflections on the Logical and Illogical Bodies of My Sexual Compatriots." The author draws on an earlier rendition of this text, "Riflessioni sui corpi logici e illogici delle mie compagne di sesso," which formed the introduction to La bionda, fa bruna e l'asino: congli occhi di oggi sugli anni settanta e ottanta (The blonde woman, the dark woman, and the donkey: looking at the seventies and eighties with the eyes of today), Maraini's 1987 collection ofmeditations on women in Italian society. Even in its earlier form, this essay has never before been published in English. In its revised and expanded version, it reflects on Maraini's own critical reception as well as on the relationship that female writers have with language, patriarchal society, and -the canon. The introduction that opens the volume provides an overview of Maraini's work and significance. The thirteen essays that form the body ofthe volume utilize a wide spectrum ofinterpretive perspectives, from semioticstopsychoanalysis. Part one comprises the introduction and Maraini's meditation. Part two examines segments of Maraini's work in relation to literary vii Preface traditions, aiming at recontextualizations for which gender forms a primary category. Part three highlights Maraini's signifying practices-whether contextual or formal-concerning the idea of women's freedom. History, the subject ofpart four, is a privileged territory for feminism, and several of Maraini's texts that draw on historical figures of women are here explored. Finally, in part five, the issues of the body and the construction of subjectivity are discussed, including a rarely examined aspect of Maraini's production: her films. The studies in this volume offer access to the complex pleasures ofreading Dacia Maraini. The Pleasure ofWriting emphasizes the enduring cultural values of her work, which it presents as a politically committed art. Maraini's work stands as an answer to those who question the value of such an art. viii ...