There’s No Turning Back

Discover the “boundary-breaking” (LitHub) debut novel by the beloved feminist author of the “brilliant” (The Wall Street Journal) Forbidden Notebook and the “courageous” (The Washington Post) Her Side of the Story that was so subversive, it was banned by the Italian Fascist regime when it was first published in 1938.A coming-of-age novel that is as relevant today as it was nearly ninety years ago, There’s No Turning Back centers on eight women with radically different backgrounds who attend the same college in Rome. Some are there to study, others to escape a scandal, or keep a secret, and during their time there, they experience the challenges of love, work, and emancipation. Considered experimental and revolutionary at the time, this novel established Alba de C?spedes as “one of Italy’s most cosmopolitan, incendiary, insightful, and overlooked writers” (Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winner). Translated by Ann Goldstein, There’s No Turning Back demonstrates why de C?spedes deserves “an important place in the canon of women’s literature” (Chicago Review of Books).

Author: Alba de Céspedes
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 03/17/2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.43lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.31w x 0.76d
ISBN: 9781668083642
Language: English