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The Art of Joy

by Goliarda Sapienza · first published 1998

The Art of Joy (L'arte della gioia) is a historical Italian novel by Goliarda Sapienza. Written over a nine-year period, the novel was finished in 1976 but was rejected by Italian publishers because of its length (of 540 pages) and its portrayal of a woman unrestrained by conventional morality and traditional feminine roles. It details a woman's pursuit of cultural, financial and sexual independence in early-20th-century Sicily, during which she sleeps with both men and women, commits incest and murders a nun. It was only published after Sapienza's death, with the success of its French, German, and Spanish editions earning Sapienza comparisons to D. H. Lawrence and Stendhal.

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