Title: Sometimes the soul
Description: In "A Knot of Tears," a woman's locked-up life is transformed by a parrot who tells tales; her story becomes a subtle and surprising meditation on the necessity of being true to oneself and others. In "Rusina, Not Quite in Love," a strange and lovely retelling of the story of the Beauty and the Beast, a young woman escapes family and society to find consolation and beauty in nature and its muse.

In each case, women of very different backgrounds - one aristocratic, one impoverished - find solitary spaces from which they can emerge as artists and shapers of their own destinies.
Subjects: Fiction, Social life and customs, Italy, fiction, Sicily (italy), fiction, Fiction, short stories (single author), New York Times reviewed
Places: Sicily (Italy)