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Overview
Palermo, Sicily. In the Piazza Marina a large crowd has gathered to witness the public hanging of a young brigand. Duke Signoretto Ucria di Fontanasalsa, leader of the Noble Fathers of the Inquisition, is in attendance, and with him is his deaf-mute daughter Marianna, who is seven years old. The child watches as the rope is slipped round the prisoner's neck; there is a roll of drums and the hangman kicks away the box on which the boy is standing; the body drops and starts to rotate. The execution over, the Duke turns to his daughter: surely such a sight will force her to speak? But she remains silent and trembling, clinging to the folds of her father's robes. Set in the mid-eighteenth century, Dacia Maraini's unforgettable novel tells the story of three generations of the Ucria family, seen through the watchful eyes of the young Duchess Marianna. Married at thirteen to her own uncle, set apart from others by her handicap, she searches for fulfilment in a society in which women face either marriage and endless childbearing, or a life of renunciation within the walls of a convent.Synopsis
The international bestseller from Italy's foremost woman writer—now in paperback.
Library Journal
The heroine of this novel, Marianna, is a duchess in early 18th-century Sicily. She is deaf and dumb, but she wasn't born that way. As she turns 40, she realizes that she has been married (since she was 13) to the uncle who raped her when she was five years old. This traumatic revelation triggers her physical disabilities, compelling her to seek refuge in books and letters. Marianna decides to travel after her husband dies and even turns down an attractive marriage proposal in order to be independent for the first time in her life. Maraini's (e.g., Voices, Serpent's Tail, 1997) writing is elegant, and her graphic descriptions of the luxurious life of the aristocracy in sharp contrast to the squalor of the majority living in poverty are quite realistic. The Silent Duchess was made into a movie in 1996. Recommended for women's studies classes, readers interested in early Sicilian history, and wherever foreign authors are popular.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH