Goliarda Sapienza\'s The Art of Joy was written over a nine year span, from 1967 to 1976. Sapienza had been unable to find a publisher for what was to become her most celebrated work, due to its perceived immorality. The manuscript lay for decades in a chest finally being proclaimed a \"forgotten masterpiece\" when it was eventually published in 2005. 

This epic Sicilian novel, which follows its main character, Modesta, through nearly the entire span of the 20th century, is at once a coming-of-age novel, a tale of sexual discovery, a fictional autobiography, and a sketch of Italy\'s sociopolitical past.