Author Guide · Novels, Memoir & Essays
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Natalia Ginzburg published her first story at seventeen and her first novel, in 1942, under a false name, Alessandra Tornimparte, because the Racial Laws barred Jewish authors in Fascist Italy. She was then living in internal exile in Pizzoli, a village in the Abruzzo, with her husband Leone Ginzburg and their children; in February 1944 Leone died in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison after being tortured. She went on to work as an editor at Einaudi in Turin, to win the Strega Prize in 1963 with Family Lexicon, and to sit in the Italian Parliament from 1983 until her death in 1991. This guide covers her eleven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1942–1984 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Natalia Ginzburg’s best-known books are Family Lexicon (1963), her Strega Prize-winning book about her own family in Turin, the essays of The Little Virtues (1962), and the novels The Dry Heart (1947), All Our Yesterdays (1952) and Happiness, as Such (1973). Start with Family Lexicon; below are all eleven key books in order, with a reading path through the rest.
Where to Start with Natalia Ginzburg
If you want her defining book
→ Family Lexicon (1963) — her family, Fascism and the war, told through the phrases they repeated.
If you want her essays
→ The Little Virtues (1962) — eleven short pieces, from exile in the Abruzzo to her craft as a writer.
If you want a short novel to read in one sitting
→ The Dry Heart (1947) — a marriage that ends with a gunshot.
If you want a novel of Italy at war
→ All Our Yesterdays (1952) — two families in the north, and a village in the south.
11 Natalia Ginzburg Books, in Order
The Road to the City
La strada che va in città, her first novel, published by Einaudi in 1942 under the pseudonym Alessandra Tornimparte. Delia, a restless teenager in a poor country family, wants only to get to the nearby town and its shops; she becomes pregnant and is married off to the doctor’s son. It is narrated in the flat, plain first person that became her signature.
The Dry Heart
È stato così (literally “That’s how it was”). A young woman tells, in a single breath, how she came to shoot her husband, Alberto: their courtship, his long attachment to another woman, the birth and death of their child. The killing is announced at the start, so the book is about how a marriage empties out rather than about what happens.
All Our Yesterdays
Tutti i nostri ieri, also published in English as A Light for Fools. Two families living opposite each other in a northern Italian town drift through the Fascist years; Anna, the youngest daughter of one of them, becomes pregnant and marries Cenzo Rena, an older family friend, who takes her to his village in the south, where the war reaches them. It won the Swiss Veillon Prize in 1952.
Valentino
Caterina, the narrator, watches her parents pin all their hopes on her brother Valentino, the handsome son they believe will become a doctor. Instead he marries a rich, older and plain woman, and the family has to decide what it thinks of him. It was among the 1957 Viareggio Prize winners; in English it usually appears together with the novella Sagittarius from the same year.
Voices in the Evening
Le voci della sera. In a small town in Piedmont, Elsa, who lives with her parents, tells the history of the De Francisci family who own the local factory, and of her secret affair with the youngest son, Tommasino. Much of the novel is talk: the overheard, repeated conversations of the title.
The Little Virtues
Le piccole virtù, eleven essays. They include “Winter in the Abruzzi”, on her years of exile in Pizzoli with Leone Ginzburg; a portrait of her friend Cesare Pavese; an essay on her vocation as a writer; and the title essay, which argues that children should be taught the great virtues rather than the little ones.
Family Lexicon
Lessico famigliare, earlier translated as Family Sayings and The Things We Used to Say. Ginzburg tells the life of her family in Turin from the 1920s to 1950 through the phrases they repeated, dominated by her father, the histologist Giuseppe Levi. Fascism, the persecution of Jews, Leone Ginzburg’s death in custody and the suicide of Cesare Pavese in 1950 all pass through it. It won the Strega Prize in 1963 and is now read in Italian schools.
Happiness, as Such
Caro Michele, earlier translated as No Way and Dear Michael. Told mostly in letters: Michele, a young man caught up in radical politics, leaves Rome for England, and his mother, his sisters and Mara, a young woman with a baby who may be his, write to him and to each other. Mario Monicelli’s 1976 film Caro Michele, co-written by Ginzburg, won him the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin.
Family
Famiglia, two novellas set among the middle class of 1970s Rome. In the title story a man in his forties moves between his wife, a former lover and her daughter; in Borghesia a widow living alone passes her days with a succession of cats while her family loses touch with her.
The Manzoni Family
La famiglia Manzoni, a history of the family of Alessandro Manzoni, author of The Betrothed, built largely from their letters over the nineteenth century. Manzoni himself stays at the edge; the book is about his mother, his wives and his many children, several of whom died young. It won the Bagutta Prize in 1984.
The City and the House
La città e la casa, her last novel, told entirely in letters. Giuseppe, a man in his fifties, sells his house in Rome and goes to live with his brother in the United States; the friends he leaves behind, above all Lucrezia and her family in the country house he used to visit, write to him about the life that goes on without him.
In What Order to Read Natalia Ginzburg
None of her books continues another, so you can read them in any order. Publication order shows a clear shape, though: the short, tight novellas of the 1940s and 1950s, the two great books about her own life in the early 1960s, and the novels in letters of the 1970s and 1980s, where the voices multiply and nobody tells the whole story.
Most readers start with Family Lexicon, then go to The Little Virtues, whose essays cover the same people and years from another angle. The early novellas are short enough to read in an evening each.
A reading path
1. Family Lexicon (1963)
2. The Little Virtues (1962)
3. The Dry Heart (1947)
4. All Our Yesterdays (1952)
5. Happiness, as Such (1973)
Everything Else Natalia Ginzburg Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 11 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other fiction
1
1 book · 1957
- 1957Sagittariusa novella about a widow who opens an art gallery; in English usually paired with Valentino
Essays and non-fiction
4
4 books · 1970–1999
- 1970Never Must You Ask Meessays (Mai devi domandarmi)
- 1974A Place to Liveessays (Vita immaginaria); the English selection takes its title from one of them
- 1990Serena Cruz, or The Meaning of True Justiceon the court case over a Filipino child adopted by an Italian family
- 1999It’s Hard to Talk About Yourselfinterviews and talks, published after her death
Plays
6
6 books · 1966–1991
- 1966I Married You for Funher first play (Ti ho sposato per allegria)
- 1966The Strawberry Icealso translated as Strawberry and Cream
- 1968The AdvertisementL’inserzione
- 1973The Wiga one-act monologue
- 1988The InterviewL’intervista
- 1991The Cormoranther last play
The years · 1916–1991
Quick facts about Natalia Ginzburg
- Known for
- Writing about family life, marriage and Italy under Fascism in a plain, conversational voice, above all in Family Lexicon (1963), the account of her own family that won the Strega Prize.
- 1916
- Born Natalia Levi in Palermo
- 1944
- Leone Ginzburg dies in Regina Coeli prison
- 1963
- Family Lexicon
- 1991
- Dies in Rome
- Born
- Natalia Levi, 14 July 1916, Palermo; she grew up in Turin
- Died
- 7 October 1991, Rome
- Parents
- The histologist Giuseppe Levi and Lidia Tanzi
- Married
- Leone Ginzburg (1938; he died in 1944), then the English scholar Gabriele Baldini (1950; he died in 1969)
- Worked
- Editor at Einaudi, Turin, in the 1940s; Member of Parliament, 1983–1991
- Prizes
- Veillon Prize (1952), Strega Prize (1963), Bagutta Prize (1984)
- Family
- Her son Carlo Ginzburg is a historian
The red mark is 1963: Family Lexicon, the book about her own family that won the Strega Prize.
How Natalia Ginzburg Writes: The Language of Ordinary Talk
Ginzburg writes in commonplace, conversational Italian, in short sentences that state things and move on. Her narrators, usually women, report what happened and what was said with almost no commentary, so that the worst events — a shooting in The Dry Heart, a husband’s death under torture in Family Lexicon — arrive in the same even tone as a remark about the weather.
Speech is her subject as much as her medium. Family Lexicon is organised around the phrases her family repeated for decades, which she treats as the thing that holds a family together; Voices in the Evening is built from overheard conversations; and her later novels, Happiness, as Such and The City and the House, are told in letters, so that nobody, including the reader, has the whole picture.
History is always present and always at an angle. Fascism, the Racial Laws and the war appear through their effect on kitchens, marriages and children rather than in set pieces, which is how a book about one family in Turin became one of the standard Italian accounts of those years.
Frequently asked questions about Natalia Ginzburg’s books
How many books has Natalia Ginzburg written?
Close to thirty, counting her eleven plays. Eleven are the key books on this page, from The Road to the City (1942) to The City and the House (1984); the rest are the novella Sagittarius, four books of essays and non-fiction, and her plays.
What are Natalia Ginzburg’s books in order?
The Road to the City (1942), The Dry Heart (1947), All Our Yesterdays (1952), Valentino (1957), Voices in the Evening (1961), The Little Virtues (1962), Family Lexicon (1963), Happiness, as Such (1973), Family (1977), The Manzoni Family (1983) and The City and the House (1984). Years are those of first publication in Italian.
Where should I start with Natalia Ginzburg?
With Family Lexicon (1963), her account of her own family in Turin from the 1920s to 1950. If you prefer something shorter, read the essays in The Little Virtues or the novella The Dry Heart.
What is Natalia Ginzburg’s most famous book?
Family Lexicon (Lessico famigliare), which won the Strega Prize in 1963 and is read in Italian schools. In English, the essays of The Little Virtues (1962) are almost as widely read.
Why are there different English titles for the same book?
Several of her books have been translated more than once. Lessico famigliare has appeared as Family Sayings, The Things We Used to Say and Family Lexicon; Caro Michele as No Way, Dear Michael and Happiness, as Such; Tutti i nostri ieri as A Light for Fools and All Our Yesterdays. They are the same books.
Is Family Lexicon a novel or a memoir?
Both, in a sense. It is about her real family, under their real names, but she wrote it as a book of memory shaped like a novel, and it is often described as an autobiographical novel.
Did Natalia Ginzburg reject Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man?
Yes, as an editor at Einaudi she turned it down in 1947; the small publisher De Silva brought it out that year instead. Her reading report has not survived, so her exact reasons are unknown. Einaudi later published Levi’s books.
What prizes did Natalia Ginzburg win?
The Veillon Prize for All Our Yesterdays (1952), the Viareggio Prize for Valentino (1957), the Strega Prize for Family Lexicon (1963) and the Bagutta Prize for The Manzoni Family (1984).
Have Natalia Ginzburg’s books been filmed?
Mario Monicelli filmed Caro Michele (Happiness, as Such) in 1976, with Ginzburg as one of the screenwriters; he won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. She herself appeared as Mary of Bethany in Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964).
Was Natalia Ginzburg in politics?
Yes. She was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1983 as an independent on the left and re-elected in 1987, serving until her death in Rome on 7 October 1991.
Footnotes
- Natalia Ginzburg — Wikipedia
- Family Lexicon — Wikipedia
- Natalia Ginzburg — Jewish Women’s Archive Encyclopedia
- How (and why) Primo Levi’s work was once rejected — Literary Hub
- Viareggio Prize — Wikipedia
- Caro Michele (film) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger.”
— Natalia Ginzburg, “The Little Virtues”, in The Little Virtues (1962), translated by Dick Davis
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