Book Review: L'Arminuta

Novel
Written By: Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Publisher: Einaudi - Torino
Published In The: 2017
Pages:163
Language: Italian
Winner of The 55^ Premio Campiello


The title of this novel is in dialect of the region Abruzzo, in Italy.

At the centre of the cover, there is a girl with two eyes, her glance is so intense to capture your attention for a couple of minutes, like the first line of the novel.

"At the age of thirteen, I no longer knew my other mother."

The meaning of the title is "the returned" a person that came back after a long period of time.

From the first paragraph it's clear the drama of this novel, a young girl of thirteen years old, who has been abandoned by two mothers, both living.

Pages after pages, we will know the characters, the most important for "L'Arminuta" is Adriana her sister.

This is an intense and psychological novel, such as, we do not know  the christian name of her natural mother but as "The Mother" and her stepmother Adalgisa.

She has been abandoned by Adalgisa because she is ill and she is forced to go in a rural village and live for a long period of time, with her natural mother.

Adriana is central to the growth of the l' arminuta, she is a surrogate mother, she is her force, gasoline, to continue to live well.

The life in the new house is negative, she is considered by her natural mother and brothers as an insignificant being, which brings considerable turmoil in their poor family, it is in substance, another mouth to feed.

Her brother Vincenzo is naive and unable of lying, his sexual impulses are without inhibitory brakes, he is sexually attracted by her sister l' Arminuta.

The rural village is located in the Abruzzo region, in the south of Italy, the inhabitants haven't any cultural interests, this imply that she cannot grow up she is destined to live a flat live.

L' Arminuta is oppressed by this life, like the reader, both oppressed by the use of the dialect.