%0 Journal Article %T The life and the literary output of Beatrice Speraz %A Trze-Biuk %A Antonia %J - %D 2018 %X Sa£¿etak Beatrice Speraz is an Italian writer of the late nineteenth century, better known in literary circles under the artistic name of Bruno Sperani. She was born in Solin, Croatia, in a family of an Italian mother belonging to a lower nobility and a father, a Croat of the middle class, and was baptized under the name of Vica Sperac. Her name was later italianized in Beatrice Speraz as the author remained an orphan in her early childhood and was given to upbringing to her mother¡¯s side relatives in Istria, a territory then under the Italian reign. She gathered memories of her childhood in the collection of stories entitled Ricordi della mia infanzia in Dalmazia (1915) and the only return to her second homeland, yet only fictional, was in the novel Cesare (1879). Her prolific literary output counts eighteen novels, a dozen short stories, a play and numerous articles on the contemporary issues in Italy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The central theme in her novels and short stories is a woman, her position in a society and the burden which she bears due to her gender. The aim of the paper is to give a closer look at the literary figure of Beatrice Speraz, once widely read and popular female author, who with the first restless and gloomy decades of the twentieth century, sank into oblivion. The paper also tries to point out the importance of her work in the process of developing and maturing of the female consciousness and emancipation of woman in Italy in the 2nd half of 19th and at the beginnig of 20th century and to state the most important features and elements of her literary work %K Beatrice Speraz %K Italian literature of the second half of the 19th century %K biography %K literary output %K female characters %K emancipation %U https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=315096