In the Grimaldi, a women’s college in Rome, eight young women are studying for degrees in literature and contemplating what, if anything, might allow them to live with more freedom. They study hard, although they want different things when they graduate. For some of them, marriage would be a route to freedom from oppressive families and the lack of an inheritance; for others, being able to live without men is the unspoken goal. Augusta wishes to write novels because she feels sure she will never get married. For Silvia, studying is an end in itself. 

The Grimaldi is run by a group of nuns who are fond of their pupils but firm in their authority; much of the studying, dreaming, planning and writing is done by oil lamp after the lights are switched off. The young women sometimes describe this lifestyle as a bridge: ‘we’ve already departed from one side and haven’t yet reached the other.’

There’s No Turning Back is Alba de Céspedes’s first full-length novel. It was published in 1938 and banned in 1940 for going against ‘fascist morality’. While the politics of the period is not referenced, a book about women aspiring to live without restrictions would surely have seemed radical at the