Ernesto de umberto saba
– Kirkus Reviews Spare, realistic prose that.manages to convey great emotion and deep thought simultaneously.should gain some of the recognition already won by his friends and fellow Italian writers Carlo Levi and Eugenio Montale. What sets Ernesto apart (and Saba's prose) is the equanimity, the sparkling irony of the sensibility with which he greets this unexpected turn in his life.a lovely, bright, wise fragment that by comparison makes most other adolescent sex-memory fiction read like drying cement. –Benjamin Ivry, Forward One of the greatest modern Italian poets. Estelle Gilson's translation catches the intimate rhythms of these discoveries." –Rosanna Warren Even in an incomplete state, Ernesto has the limpid style and emotional power of a major literary work. It's a story so fresh, so alive to nuances of feeling and perception, it defies any formulaic understanding of love in Saba's time or in our own. For all its modesty and charm, the novel's profound, unassuming beauty has a force and finally a grandeur that come from the source of all great art, what Saba calls 'the red hot center of life.'" – Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You "A work of tenderness that doesn't smudge its complex corners." –Anakana Schofield "Umberto Saba's secret novel Ernesto re-creates a boy's awakening to sexual love with both men and women.
This little miracle of a book tackles the weightiest themes–the unthinking cruelty of youth, the shock of adulthood, the humanizing force of love–with the humor and lightness of touch that are the surest sign of mastery.