by Goliarda Sapienza

Winner, USA Best Book Award in Fiction

“From its explosive, disturbing opening to the quiet cadences of its lyrical prose, The Art of Joy is crammed with passion, ideas, adventure, and mystery.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“An astute litany of the moral, political, and feminist issues of the last century.” —Booklist

“As errant, excessive, and irresistible as the woman at its heart, The Art of Joy more than lives up to the title. Modesta’s “intense feeling for life” overcomes whatever obstacles the ideologies of “sorrow, humiliation, and fear” can throw at her as she embraces “life’s fluidity.” —The Independent (London)

The tumultuous twentieth century, told through the life of a single extraordinary woman.

Rejected by a series of publishers, abandoned in a chest for twenty years, Goliarda Sapienza’s masterpiece, The Art of Joy, survived a turbulent path to publication. It wasn’t until 2005, when it was released in France, that this novel received the recognition it deserves. At last, Sapienza’s remarkable book is available in English.