The Outcast

A Novel

By Luigi Pirandello; Translated by Bradford A. Masoni; Foreword by Daniela Bini

SERIES: Other Voices of Italy

Rutgers University Press

A young wife in a nineteenth-century Sicilian village, Marta is deeply in love with her husband Rocco and pregnant with his child. But when Rocco discovers a letter written to Marta by a would-be suitor, he falsely accuses her of infidelity and banishes her from their home. Soon the whole village turns against the supposed adulteress, setting in motion a series of tragic events that culminates in the loss of Marta’s family home and business, as well as the deaths of her father and newborn child. Plunged into poverty and treated as a social leper, with practically nothing else to lose, Marta is determined to claw her way back into a society bent on excluding her.

The Outcast is an early masterwork from Nobel Prize–winning Italian author Luigi Pirandello that combines elements of Zolaesque naturalism with emerging modernist aesthetics. This fresh English translation, the first in nearly one hundred years, showcases Pirandello’s deft play with language and his use of irony.

This book was translated thanks to a grant awarded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

This new translation of Pirandello’s little-known early work sheds light on the repressive culture of traditional Sicilian village life, prefiguring themes that he would take up in his later fiction and drama. Masoni has done an excellent job in bringing to English-speaking readers this portrayal of a vanished world. Susan Bassnett, author of Translation Studies and Luigi Pirandello in the Theatre: A Documentary Record

A story of forbidden love and humorous misunderstanding, The Outcast is innovative, playful, and intellectually challenging writing by one of Italy’s greatest modern authors. These traits shine in Masoni’s new and much-needed translation. He has captured the ambiguous uncertainties and charming difficulties of Pirandello’s first novel, making it available once again to an English-language audience both to study and enjoy. Michael Subialka, coeditor of PSA: The Journal of the Pirandello Society of America

Bradford Masoni’s masterful translation fills a significant gap in the reception of modern Italian literature in English. A crucial transitional work between realism and modernism, this story of a woman’s attempt to take control of her own social image remains powerfully relevant well over a century after its initial publication. Luca Somigli, coeditor of Futurism: A Microhistory

Accused of an affair she never committed, Marta Ajala battles against misogyny and malice to create an independent life for herself, her mother, and sister. Masoni's new translation of Pirandello's great work brilliantly captures the novel's unique blend of realism and modernism through to its paradoxical conclusion. Ann Hallamore Caesar, coauthor of Modern Italian Literature

Masoni's rendition of The Outcast is a much-needed contribution to the dissemination of Pirandello's œuvre in English. Beautifully translated, Masoni's work masterfully captures the linguistic complexity and cultural richness of Pirandello's writing style.' Lisa Sarti, coeditor of Pirandello's Visual Philosophy: Imagination and Thought across Media

LUIGI PIRANDELLO (1867 –1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer who found his first mainstream success with the novel Il fu Mattia Pascal in 1904. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. Pirandello's works include seven collections of poetry, seven novels, hundreds of short stories, and about forty plays.

BRADFORD A. MASONI is a writer, editor, and translator who specializes in literary modernism with a particular focus on the transition from nineteenth-century literary realism into modernism. His most recent work is a scholarly study of The Outcast entitled Pirandello Proto-Modernist: A New Reading of “L’eclusa.” He lives in Minnesota.

DANIELA BINI is a professor of Italian and comparative literature at the University of Texas, Austin, where she chaired the Department of French and Italian for eight years. She was named Cavaliere (Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana) by the president of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, in 2007.

Foreword, Daniela Bini
Translator's Note, Bradford A. Masoni
The Outcast
About the Author
About the Translator
About the Contributor

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