Two Women

Two Women (original title in Italian: La Ciociara) is a 1957 Italian-language novel by Alberto Moravia. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her teenaged daughter from the horrors of war. When both are attacked and the virgin daughter raped, the daughter suffers PTSD. The 1960 film adaptation starred Sophia Loren and earned her the Academy Award. Plot summary A daughter and her mother fight to survive in Rome during the Second World War. Cesira, a widowed Roman shopkeeper, and Rosetta, a naive teenager of beauty and devout faith. When the German army prepares to enter Rome, Cesira packs a few provisions, sews her life savings into the seams of her dress, and flees south with Rosetta to her native province of Ciociaria, a poor, mountainous region famous for providing the domestic servants of Rome.