Caesar, Ann (Hallamore)

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CAESAR, Ann (Hallamore)

PERSONAL:

Female. Education: Kent University, B.A.; London University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Italian, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, England. E-mail—a.caesar@warwick.ac.uk.

CAREER:

Italian scholar and educator. University of Warwick, Coventry, England, professor of Italian and chair of department.

WRITINGS:

(Editor with Michael Caesar) The Quality of Light: Modern Italian Short Stories ("Women's Classics" series), Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor) Matilde Serao, The Conquest of Rome ("Women's Classics" series), New York University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Characters and Authors in Luigi Pirandello, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ann Caesar has edited books for New York University Press's "Women's Classics" series, including, with Michael Caesar, The Quality of Light: Modern Italian Short Stories, a translation of writings by twenty-two Italian writers who were born between 1919 and 1959. The book is dedicated to Pier Vitrorio Tondelli, whose "The Station Bar" is a depiction of life among the homeless, criminals, and drug addicts and pushers. A Publishers Weekly contributor who described the collection as "gray" felt Tondelli's to be "the lightest." Many of the stories do in fact contain "the strange and elusive quality of light," noted Marcia Welsh in Library Journal, light that is reflected by a lantern, rain, and burning embers. Booklist reviewer Gary Amdahl wrote that the translations of the Italian stories have resulted in "a wonderfully rarefied and intense kind of English." Welsh called The Quality of Light a "scintillating addition to contemporary fiction collections."

Caesar's Characters and Authors in Luigi Pirandello is a study of the writer and poet who became drawn to theater during his middle years, and whose best-known play is Six Characters in Search of an Author. Caesar documents Pirandello's various styles of writing, his preference for unsettled domestic situations, and his lack of sympathy for women. Susan Bassnet wrote in Theatre Research International that this volume "is a sound and interesting study that deserves attention from anyone interested in one of the century's most enigmatic writers."