'Silvia Ross's subtly delineated study shows how much more varied Tuscany and Tuscans themselves prove to be when treated by writers with a profound grasp of the language and culture. Ross's comparative presentation of major Tuscan and other Italian authors who have treated the region presents a bracing antidote to platitudes about (often primitivized) locals written by "real-estate-style" travel writers.' -- Jonathan White, Professor Emeritus in Literature, University of Essex

An important locus for English-speaking writers, the region of Tuscany is also well represented in the Italian literary canon. In Tuscan Spaces, Silvia Ross focuses on constructions of Tuscany in twentieth-century Italian literature and juxtaposes them with English prose works by such authors as E.M. Forster and Frances Mayes to expose the complexity of literary representation centred on a single milieu.

Ross uses the works of writers such as Federigo Tozzi, Aldo Palazzeschi, Vasco Pratolini, and Elena Gianini Belotti, to seek out alternative visions of Tuscan space and emphasizes that each author fashions the region in a manner which reflects their personal poetics, background, and experiences. Theories of cultural geography, space, travel, and narrative contribute to Ross's consideration of the dualisms commonly employed in writings about Tuscany, such as country/city, nature/culture, female/male, and self/other, all of which are in turn affected by her interrogation of the local/foreign opposition that underlies the study as a whole.

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‘This book presents readers with a number of innovative representations of the region… A well written and interesting book that provides historical context and geographical specificity to a subject that has long engaged writers, directors, tourists, and literary theorists.’