'Reading Alba de Cespedes was, for me, like breaking into an unknown universe: social class, feelings, atmosphere' - Annie Ernaux

'One of Italy's most cosmopolitan, incendiary, insightful, and overlooked writers' - Jhumpa Lahiri

'Electric... de Cespedes's novel anticipates the candid confessionals of writers such as Deborah Levy, Sheila Heti and Rachel Cusk... Formally precise, psychologically rich, and suffused in suspicion and suspense, Forbidden Notebook is an exquisite, tormented how' - Financial Times

'While I'm writing, I confine myself to occasionally reading books that keep me company not as entertainment but as solid companions. I call them books of encouragement, like those by Alba de Cespedes' - Elena Ferrante

'Recently rediscovered, her work has lost none of its subversive force' - New York Times

Alba de Cespedes (1911-97) was a bestselling Italian-Cuban novelist, poet and screenwriter. The granddaughter of the first President of Cuba, de Cespedes was raised in Rome. Married at 15 and a mother by 16, she began her writing career after her divorce at the age of 20. She worked as a journalist throughout the 1930s while also taking an active part in the Italian partisan struggle, and was twice jailed for her anti-fascist activities. After the fall of fascism, she founded the literary journal Mercurio and went on to become one of Italy's most successful and most widely translated authors. Forbidden Notebook is also published from Pushkin Press.