"My Jewish identity became extremely important to me from the moment the Jews began to be persecuted. At that point I became aware of myself as a Jew. But I came from a mixed marriage—my father was Jewish, my mother Catholic. My parents were atheists and therefore chose not to give us, the children, any religious instruction. They were totally non-observant. You might say that a Hebrew spirit dominated the household in the sense that my father had a very strong, very authoritarian character. And I suppose it’s true that many of the family friends were Jews, but many were not. So, while I did not have any sort of formal Jewish upbringing, I nevertheless felt my Jewishness very acutely during the war years (my first husband, Leone Ginzburg, was a Jew) and after the war, when it became known what had been done to the Jews in the camps by the Nazis. Suddenly my Jewishness became very important to me."
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Novelists from ItalyEssayists from ItalyWomen authorsPlaywrights from ItalyShort story writers from Italy
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Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg (née Levi; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an author who lived in Italy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, which often explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. For a time in the 1930s she belonged to the Italian Communist Party and in 1983 she was elected to Parliament from Rome as an independent politician.
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