A Woman’s Loss of Imagination: Paola Masino’s Magical Realism in Nascita e morte della Massaia

Criticism on Paola Masino has flourished since the early 2000s. This increased attention has contributed towards reclaiming an author often overshadowed by the attention received by her partner, Massimo Bontempelli, the father of realismo magico. Masino experimented with a variety of styles—realismo magico was one of them—as she rejected strictly naturalistic forms of representation, preferring to co-opt myths and the supernatural. Nascita e morte della Massaia (1945) is Masino’s most renowned literary effort, both for its critique of Fascist Italy and for its sophisticated stylistic effects. Nascita, while indebted to Bontempelli’s theorizations, features all the chief characteristics listed in Faris’s analysis of magical realism as an international phenomenon, and illustrates how magical realism offers strategies for evading censorship to those writing against totalitarianism regimes. At the same time, it is an example of how magical realism can be used to denounce socially imposed gender roles. My analysis shows how this narrative mode emerges on multiple levels within Masino’s text

Paola Masino's Short Fiction: Another Voice in the Collective Experience of Italian Neorealism

Known for her fantastical and allegorical style and for her affiliation with "magic realism," Paola Masino's reputation rests chiefly on her novels, particularly Nascita e morte della massaia, and on works that are seemingly confined to female subjectivity and the private sphere. This article examines Masino's short fiction to reveal a more public, engagé, side of the author. After a close reading of "Fame," "Famiglia," "Lino," "Terzo anniversario" and "Paura," it focuses on the two racconti brevi "Una parola che vola" and "Il nobile gallo" in order to highlight the neo-realist aspect of the pieces and to argue that Masino drew on allegories, fables, and parables to engage with history. It also maintains that Masino used her pen as a political tool to denounce the horror and suffering of war, to foster a commitment to the Resistance, and to call for the cultural and political reconstruction of Italy