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The role of women in Indian society and the relationship of East and West are the main themes of Anita Desai’s novel Fasting and Feasting. The story revolves around two siblings: Uma, a young girl who lives in India, surrounded by traditional rites and culture, and her brother Arun, the family’s only son, who is studying in the United States. Their worlds are thousands of miles apart but in many ways the contrasts between them are only superficial. The world around them capriciously pushes them towards restraint or excess – fasting or feasting – but all either of them really wants is to be left alone.

“… So Arun sees the resemblance to something he knows: to the altered face of a furious sister who, unable to express her feelings of humiliation over negligence, misunderstandings and indifference for her own person, limits herself to foaming with rage in an ineffectual protest. How strange to find her here, reflects Arun, where everything is allowed, where people enjoy freedom and wellbeing. But what is wellbeing? What about its opposite? Where is the difference?…”

Licia Maglietta
Born in Naples, in the course of her career Licia Maglietta has had experience in theatre, dance, cinema and television. After receiving a university degree in architecture, she joined the theatrical group Falso Movimento, and later, Teatri Uniti. She acted, with the direction of Carlo Cecchi, in La locandiera (1993) and Leonce e Lena (1994). In 1995 she performed in a piece of her own, Delirio amoroso, which was inspired by her encounter with the poet Alda Merini, a woman who had been deeply affected by her experience in psychiatric institutions.
Soon afterwards Licia Maglietta moved from the theatre to the cinema. From well-received supporting roles in Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician (Morte di un matematico napoletano, 1992), Rasoi (1993) and Nella città barocca (1995), she went on to play leading roles in Mario Montone’s Nasty Love (L’amore molesto, 1995) and The acrobat (Le acrobate, 1997), and Silvio Soldini’s Bread and Tulips (Pane e tulipani, 1999).
For Bread and Tulips she received the Ciak d’Oro award and the Davide di Donatello 2000 award as best actress. For television she took part in the Provincia segreta 2 project.
Further films are Red Moon (Luna Rossa, 2001), directed by Antonio Capuano; Agatha and the Storm (Agata e la tempesta, 2004) by Silvio Soldini; and Nel mio amore (2004), the writer Susanna Tamaro’s debut as a film director.
In the theatre Licia Maglietta has presented a number of “feminine” works such as Marguerite Duras’s L’uomo atlantico (The Atlantic Man); Lamìa, a mysterious story of love and prostitution based on the short story Le incurabili by Luisa Stella; and, for the Teatro 2004 edition of the Dedica festival, Vasta è la prigione, inspired by Assia Djebar’s novel Vaste est la prison (So vast the Prison).
At present Licia Maglietta is performing in Una volta in Europa (Once in Europe) by John Berger.