ABSTRACT

Novelist, essayist and short story writer Loy made her debut in 1974 with the collection of short stories La bicicletta (The Bicycle), winner of the prestigious Viareggio Prize. In many subsequent novels, among them La porta dell’acqua (Water’s Door) (1976), L’estate di Letuqué (Letuqué’s Summer) (1982) and All’insaputa della notte (Unknown to the Night) (1984), she fashions characters and their milieu through detailed psychological exploration. Milieu also plays a particularly important role in the successful novel Le strade di polvere (Dust Roads of Monferrato), the saga of a family of Piedmontese farmers which in 1987 won both the distinguished Campiello and Viareggio Prizes (see literary prizes). In her fictional works, Loy has also focused on women’s experiences, most notably in the novel Sogni di inverno (Winter Dreams) (1992), which investigates the relationship between a mother and daughter in Rome. More recently, with La parola ebreo (The Word Jew) (1997), she has also dealt with the theme of the Holocaust.