The ten stories in this first of two volumes in English translation touch nearly all of the modes Anna Maria Ortese developed during her long and productive creative life, from the early "magical realism" to the late work which lies, as the translator notes, "at the edge of fable . . .[where] one listens to an otherworldly tale while casting a vigilant, questioning eye about the room in which it is being told." Ortese plumbs the strangeness of the world, its mysterious reality, and the dramatic emotion containing within the solitary imagination. She is truly a unique writer, and is rightly considered one of the great figures of 20th century Italian literature. The themes of this collection are evident in the opening stories, which are very much like essays. "The Submerged Continent" addresses the relationship between the self and the external world, the meaning of love, and the mystery of dreams, while "Torture" suggests that the horror of physical infirmity pales in comparison with the pain of unrequited love. For the most part, the stories lack traditional plots and have within them the thinnest layer of internal optimism, which is always in danger of suffocation by a much heavier, omnipresent, and oppressive strata of external discouragement and melancholy. Ortese seems to suggest that the inner life must constantly readjust or realign itself to cope with ever-changing, uncontrollable events, especially the whimsy of love. Ortese's remarkable career began in 1937, but because the stories are not dated, readers of this work cannot trace the development of her technique. Recommended for academic collections and for readers of serious, unconventional fiction. Olivia Opello, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. A prolific Italian writer, Ortese has, during her six-decade career, won many awards and produced several novels that have been best-sellers in Italy. Little of her work has been translated into English, and only one novel, The Iguana , has been published in the U.S. This first of a projected two volumes of selected stories provides a welcome glimpse into her creative universe. The stories demonstrate an attractive, humane voice and a magical ability to make meaning and myth of daily existence. Emphatically not "psychological fiction," they yet present moments of vision in which the inner life realigns itself, asserting its prerogatives against reality. They show Ortese attempting to reach her stated goal to explore "regions of the soul where everything impossible takes place." They make up a weird and atmospheric collection that is impossible either to summarize or to put down. John Shreffler This first volume of a planned two-volume collection could almost serve as a primer on old-fashioned Italian short fiction. Ortese (The Iguana, 1987) drifts from one dreamlike subject to the next in these cerebral and enjoyable stories, most related in the same educated, uninvolved first-person voice. The narrator of ``The Submerged Continent'' describes a wealthy family from Naples with three daughters who may or may not be real. ``Torture'' has no characters per se, but it's a startlingly clinical examination of romantic love and the havoc that it wreaks. In ``Donat'' the narrator sits in a dingy room at six o'clock and dreams of seeing a man named Donat in a bar at six o'clock, only to have Donat say that he too has dreamed of seeing the narrator in the bar at six o'clock some time in the future. ``The Ombras'' takes its name from a family--whose surname means ``shadow''--whom the narrator visits, only to glimpse them gathered around the bed of a young girl with a black and swollen body. In ``The Tenant'' the narrator's grandmother shares her room with an angel named Mr. Lin, who eventually grows wings and leaves. ``Moonlight on the Wall'' follows a pregnant woman who is suddenly finding joy in ``the mysterious beauty of being alive,'' even though she is convinced that few people appreciate her. ``The House in the Woods'' is the lengthiest and least successful of these stories. Its narrator lives with Trude, whom she describes as ``the bruised and swollen side of one's own soul,'' and there is an odd incident with two men who are either plumbers or thieves or something else altogether, but Ortese has played the same tricks in a smaller space in the earlier pieces, so this time around they seem elaborately elongated. Interesting, but with a strangeness that sometimes becomes predictable. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Deploying recurring symbols -- railway stations, butterflies, snow, forests, islands, castles, drawings -- Ortese conjures up haunting psychological states of alienation... -- Washington Post Book World Ortese sees beauty around her, but ...because of her understatement and selectivity, makes obvious to readers the agonizing difficulties faced. -- Austin (Texas) Chronicle These wonderful stories make magic real