Maja Pflug describes the childhood of the shy little latecomer and the youth of the bored young girl who grows up full of contradictions: the mother is Catholic and passionate about music, the father is Jewish and a scientist, both declared atheists; the state is fascist, the family socialist. Pflug portrays Natalia's bitter experiences in the resistance and the death of her husband Leone. Then come the difficult post-war years in Turin and Rome, her marriage to Baldini, and her friendships with Felice Balbo, Cesare Pavese, Elsa Morante, Italo Calvino, and Cesare Garboli; her work at the Einaudi publishing house, the discussions about a new literature; and finally, the increasingly intense political engagement that brings Natalia, at sixty-seven, into parliament as an independent representative on the KPI list. Maja Pflug skillfully navigates through this biography.