Carla Lonzi (b. 1931, Florence; d. 1982, Milan) was an art critic and feminist activist best known for her work with Rivolta Femminile, a feminist collective created in 1970. Following the publication of Autoritratto ('Self-portrait') in 1969, Lonzi published Manifesto di Rivolta femminile (1970), Sputiamo su Hegel. La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale e altri scritti (1974) and Taci, anzi parla. Diario di una femminista (1977). Due to her uncodified practice, she occupies a singular position within post-war Italian politics and art, and is a crucial figure of European feminism.
Self-portraittrans. Allison Grimaldi Donahue
£ 13.99
Self-portrait
Carla Lonzi
trans. Allison Grimaldi Donahue
Recorded and transcribed throughout the 1960s, Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait ruptures the narration of post-war modern art in Italy and beyond. Artmaking struck Lonzi as an invitation to be together in a ‘humanly satisfying way’, and this experiment in art-historical writing is a testament to her belief. Lonzi abolishes the role of the critic, her own, seeking change over self-preservation by theorising against the act of theorising.
Afterword by Claire Fontaine.
Shortlisted for the 2022 ALTA Italian Prose in Translation Award.
- 978-1-9164250-8-8
- 105 b&w illustrations
- 21.6 x 13.9 cm
- 364 pp.
- Paperback
- November 2021
About the author
About the translator
Allison Grimaldi Donahue (b. 1984, Middletown, Connecticut) is the author of Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2016) and the co-author of On Endings (Delere Press, 2019). Her writing and translations have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Words without Borders, Flash Art, BOMB, NERO and Tripwire, and her performances have been presented in Italy at Gavin Brown's enterprise, MAMbo, MACRO and Short Theatre. She is a 2021–22 resident of Sommerakademie Paul Klee, Bern. She lives in Bologna.
Endorsements (1)
Before she spurred everyone to spit on Hegel, Carla Lonzi arranged her Self-portrait in the form of a dialogue recorded with friends – artists – with whom she had been in conversation for years. She wanted to feel less alienated, to figure out a way for art to be a part of living, not a stupid contrivance to be consumed. Soon after the book was published, in order to continue to ‘live life in a creative way, not in obedience with the models that society proposes over and over’, she abandoned art criticism, but not art – and never life.
Press (13)
Carla Lonzi's Self-Portrait, with Allison Grimaldi Donahue and Giulia Crispianirile* books podcast09/07/2022
A Sense of Exclusion: An Excerpt from Carla Lonzi’s Autoritratto (Self-Portrait)Los Angeles Review of Books13/03/2020
Darryl
£ 11.99
Darryl
Jackie Ess
Underneath the sharp satire and hilarious sexual irreverence this is a deadly serious book: a brilliant novel of a seeker, like The Pilgrim’s Progress refracted by queer internet culture.
Darryl Cook is a cuckold, and that’s exactly how he likes it. He has an inheritance that spares him from work, a manageable and seemingly consequence-free drug habit, and a lovely wife called Mindy who’s generally game for anything—and for as much of it as she can get. But after an accidental overdose and some serious oversharing, Darryl’s world begins to crack up. Tormented by what seems to be the secret truth in sex, and less assured of that secret’s form, Darryl steps into what used to be called real life . . . Darryl is a disarmingly funny and unabashedly intelligent look at a community of people parsing masculinity, marriage, sex (and love) on their own terms.
- 978-1-7395161-7-8
- 21.6 x 13.9 cm
- 200 pp.
- Paperback
- February 2025
Endorsements (5)
Darryl crashes through the pieties of inclusive literature like a horny aurochs through an Apple Store. Jackie Ess’s vicious wit and humane soul refuse to settle for anything less than an enhanced interrogation of human frailty, here through the psychosexual evisceration of an ordinary, relatable guy who simply wants someone else to bang his wife. Who doesn’t? This book takes the raw power of the sentence seriously, which is the best way to be funny: Darryl is sprinting ahead of the reader, mooning, with knowledge they crave, and we must try our hardest to catch up. I was already breathless by page ten, my gut torn in half by horrified glee. I stayed awake all night reading and couldn’t work the next day. Jackie Ess is the best. Cuck rights!
One of the best novels on the planet.
Ess is what I might call a burgeoning cult literary figure, armed with an unmistakable lyric deadpan and a taste for provocative subject matter.
What Darryl is looking for is a crisis of sufficient severity that it will cause him to feel real to himself.
Jackie Ess’s debut novel is a smart, unexpected and extremely funny take on marriage, masculinity and desire, written from the perspective of a loser extraordinaire.
Press (2)
Rights
- North America (Clash)