Alba de Céspedes

Work De Céspedes worked as a journalist in the 1930s for Piccolo, Epoca, and La Stampa. In 1935, she wrote her first novel, L’Anima Degli Altri. Her fiction writing was greatly influenced by the cultural developments that led to and resulted from World War II. In her writing, she instills her female characters with subjectivity. She wrote the screenplay for the Michelangelo Antonioni 1955 film Le Amiche. Her work was also part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

After the war she went to live in Paris. Although her books were bestsellers, De Céspedes has been overlooked in recent studies of Italian women writers.

Select bibliography L’Anima Degli Altri (1935) Prigionie (1936) Io, Suo Padre (1936) Concerto (1937) Nessuno Torna Indietro [There's No Turning Back] (1938) There's No Turning Back: A Novel. Translated by Goldstein, Ann. New York: Washington Square Press. 2025. . La Fuga (1940) Il Libro del Forestiero (1946) Dalla Parte Di Lei [The Best of Husbands] (1949)

Gli Affetti Di Famiglia (1952) Tra Donne De Sole (1955) Invito A Pranzo (1955) Prima E Dopo [Between Then and Now] (1956) Il Rimorso (1967) La Bambalona (1967) Chansons des filles de mai (1968) Sans Autre Lieu Que La Nuit (1973) Nel Buio Della Notte (1976)

Visit to Cuba De Céspedes in October 1968 attended the centennial of Cuba's struggle for independence celebrations. One of the events, attended by Fidel Castro, was held in Manzanillo, Cuba, where her grandfather, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, on 10 October 1868, had made a speech against Spain which started the Ten Years' War. She also during that trip donated to the Cuban National Archives letters written by her grandfather between 1871 and 1874 to his wife.