The Little Virtues

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By Natalia Ginzburg & Dick Davis &

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Publisher Description

In this collection of her finest and best-known short essays, Natalia Ginzburg explores both the mundane details and inescapable catastrophes of personal life with the grace and wit that have assured her rightful place in the pantheon of classic mid-century authors. Whether she writes of the loss of a friend, Cesare Pavese; or what is inexpugnable of World War II; or the Abruzzi, where she and her first husband lived in forced residence under Fascist rule; or the importance of silence in our society; or her vocation as a writer; or even a pair of worn-out shoes, Ginzburg brings to her reflections the wisdom of a survivor and the spare, wry, and poetically resonant style her readers have come to recognize.

"A glowing light of modern Italian literature . . . Ginzburg's magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning streak of a plain phrase. . . . As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart.' — The New York Times Book Review

88 Reviews

3.5

Brian Tyler

Created 1 day ago

Inês Correia

Created 3 months ago

“This was a mixed experience for me, with more misses than hits. The standout essay, by far, was The Son of Man, a powerful reflection on how war and despotism reshape the very foundations of our lives, reshape trust itself. Reading it in 2025, I couldn’t help but reflect on how fragile the comforts and certainties I hold today are. A few other essays - Winter in Abruzzi, My Vocation, and The Little Virtues - were interesting, at least as glimpses into her thought process. However, overall, I found much of the collection emotionally distant. The tone felt cold, and the repeated use of "you" gave many essays the feel of a lecture, as if they were describing universal truths that, in most cases, didn’t feel earned. In the end, The Son of Man is the only piece that will stay with me.”

Radiogrl

Created 3 months ago

Kelsie LeBlanc

Created 4 months ago

Martine

Created 4 months ago

“Måtte tenke litt før jeg skrev om denne. Jeg likte denne samlingen av tekster skikkelig godt, vet ikke om den kan kalles en novellesamling eller en bok med kortere essays? Noen av tekstene var så utrolig fine at jeg måtte gå tilbake og lese de på nytt da jeg var ferdig, for å få med meg ting jeg kanskje gikk glipp av første omgang. Merker jeg virkelig blir trukket til bøker der egen tolkning og verdilegging er det som gjør boken god eller ikke for deg. Tenkte veldig mye på mitt eget liv mens jeg leste og knyttet de ulike tekstene til forskjellige mennesker i livet mitt, som jeg synes var utrolig fint! Har veldig lyst til å prøve å lese en av bøkene til ginzburg på norsk også for å se hvordan det er blitt oversatt, opprinnelig italiensk! Ser fram til neste verk allerede. Tekst: Portrait of a Friend ‘In his company we became more intelligent; we felt compelled to articulate whatever was best and most serious in us, and we got rid of commonplace notions, imprecise thoughts, incoherent ideas.’ Tekst: The Son of Man ‘We are close to the truth of things. This is the only good the war has given us, but it has given it only to the young. It has given nothing but fear and a sense of insecurity to the old. And we who are young are also afraid, we also feel insecure in our homes, but we are not made defenceless by this fear. We have a toughness and strength which those who are older than us have never known.’ Anbefales!”

About Natalia Ginzburg

Natalia Ginzburg was born in Palermo, Italy in 1916. She was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories, and essays, for which she received the Strega Prize and Bagutta Prize. Modest and intensely reserved, Ginzburg never shied away from the traumas of history, whether writing about the Turin of her childhood, the Abruzzi countryside, or contemporary Romeall the while approaching those traumas only indirectly, through the mundane details and catastrophes of personal life. Most of her works were also translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States. She wrote acclaimed translations of both Proust and Flaubert into Italian. She died in Rome in 1991.