New Books In Literary Studies

Winner of the 2013 Samuel Johnson Prize, Lucy Hughes-Hallett‘s biography of Gabriele d’Annunzio is a book with a big mission: to write inventively about the life of someone with whom most everyone outside of Italy is entirely unfamiliar whilst also promoting the literary legacy of a man celebrated within his own country and little translated (much less read) everywhere else. In the end, Gabriele d’Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War (Knopf, 2013) succeeds on both fronts, which is precisely why it remains one of the most lauded biographies of the last year. It’s not a straightforward day-by-day narrative. Rather, the story zooms in and out, taking flight and exuberantly soaring through whole weeks, months, years only to, at other moments, slow down to sensuously revel in the details of a weekend on the beach or an afternoon spent in bed. There’s something about this technique that beautifully mimics the ways in which we often reflect upon our own lives, with whole boring