Familiar lexicon

Published in 1963, it is one of the great classics of 20th-century Italian literature and one of the author's most singular works. Through personal memory, Ginzburg constructs an intimate and collective portrait of her family and, by extension, of a generation that lived between fascism, war, and the moral reconstruction of Europe.

The book is composed of phrases, sayings, and expressions that circulated among the Ginzburgs, and which, repeated over the years, form a kind of secret language: the “lexicon” that defines the identity of the group. The text reveals the weight of History and loss: the imprisonment and death of her husband, political persecution, exile, resistance.

The strength of Family Lexicon lies precisely in this tension between the everyday and the tragic, between laughter and memory. It is a book about the power of language: about how the words we inherit shape who we are and discreetly preserve us.

Natalia Ginzburg (1916–1991), born in Palermo and raised in Turin, was a novelist, essayist, and one of the most respected moral voices in post-war Italian literature. Associated with the anti-fascist intellectual circle of Giustizia e Libertà, she lived through political persecution and resistance firsthand. Her work, which includes titles such as The Little Virtues and Dear Michele, combines a refined and ethical writing style, where the intimate and the historical intertwine.