SOURCE: Ward, David. “Natalia Ginzburg's Early Writings in L'Italia libera.” In Natalia Ginzburg: A Voice of the Twentieth Century, edited by Angela M. Jeannet and Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz, pp. 46-62. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Ward notes the optimism and the militant tone of Ginzburg's writing around the end of World War II.

Rome's Traforo, the tunnel which connects via del Tritone and via Nazionale, is not usually considered one of the consecrated sites of Italian political life. Yet, for Natalia Ginzburg and her close friend Carlo Levi, it has a significant if highly personal history. For both, the Traforo has intimate connections with their years of militancy in the Partito d'azione (Action Party), the short-lived Liberal-Socialist Party co-founded by Leone Ginzburg, Natalia's first husband. As did many other young Italians, both Levi and Natalia Ginzburg equate the brief life of the party with...