I'd like to nominate
The Mother (aka
The woman and the priest), by
Maria Grazia Deledda, Italian Nobel prize for literature in 1926. This book came out in Italian in 1919, so I think it qualifies, although the first English translations are dated 1922 and 1923. From amazon:
Quote:
The Mother is an unusual book, both in its story and its setting in a remote Sardinian hill village, half civilized and superstitious. But the chief interest lies in the psychological study of the two chief characters, and the action of the story takes place so rapidly (all within the space of two days) and the actual drama is so interwoven with the mental conflict, and all so forced by circumstances, that it is almost Greek in its simple and inevitable tragedy.
The book is written without offence to any creed or opinions, and touches on no questions of either doctrine or Church government. It is just a human problem, the result of primitive human nature against man-made laws it cannot understand
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I would have preferred
Canne al vento/Reeds in the wind, but the advantage of The mother (which i have not read) is that an English translation is available for free
here.
Now I'll think of some Virginia Woolf...