Jenny Frost

The Cambridge Language Collective • 1st May 2022

Un viaggio dantesco a Ravenna — The Cambridge Language Collective

Ravenna had long been on my list of places in Italy I wanted to visit and, as my year abroad was coming to an end, I didn’t expect it to happen. It’s out of the way from where I was living at the time in central Tuscany, and I didn’t fancy attempting the 500-kilometre round trip in a day. However, in July, in the final weeks of my year abroad, my friend and I went to stay with our former flatmate in Rimini. I suddenly realised how close Ravenna and Rimini are to each other, and I knew that this

The Cambridge Language Collective • 13th April 2022

The Giro d’Italia, and other travels by bicycle — The Cambridge Language Collective

For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed cycling – although, growing up in Denmark, it was kind of a necessity. I first learned to cycle there, and this part of my upbringing gave me the confidence to love travelling on two wheels. I’ve had a passion for cycling ever since and was proud to lead the group in my Year Five cycling proficiency course, knowing that it meant that the teacher thought I was trustworthy on my bike. Moving to Cambridge, the first thing I did was acquire a bike, and I

The Cambridge Language Collective • 8th April 2022

Strappare lungo i bordi, the Italian cartoon making waves around the world — The Cambridge Language Collective

However, the cartoon is not only a glimpse into the follies and foibles of the life of its awkward protagonist. On the contrary, it transforms into something more. As I mentioned, at the end of each episode the story moves back into the present, following Zero and his friends Sarah and Secco as they travel somewhere by train. When they are greeted at the station by two older people, their identities are initially unclear, but later we find out they are the parents of their friend Alice, who we f

The Cambridge Language Collective • 2nd March 2022

Lusotropicalism in Literature — The Cambridge Language Collective

I’d heard this all my life. Go ahead, talk to me about the kind and gentle colonialism of the Portuguese... Yeah, why don’t you tell me that old wives’ tale.

This line, from journalist Isabela Figueiredo’s autobiographical work Caderno de Memórias Coloniais (Notebook of Colonial Memories), is in reference to the discrepancy between the created image of Portuguese colonialism and the reality of living it. The image of the Portuguese colonial project as ‘gentle’ comes from Gilberto Freyre’s idea

The Cambridge Language Collective • 13th January 2022

The Hand of God, Paolo Sorrentino’s Most Personal Film Yet — The Cambridge Language Collective

Content warning: This article contains discussion of parent loss and sexualisation of women

The latest film from renowned Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty, Il Divo) has been hotly anticipated since its streaming confirmation in July 2020. Finally, on 15th December, The Hand of God (È stata la mano di Dio) was released on Netflix to critical acclaim; as I write, it has won eighteen awards and been nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. I would like

Books on the HIll • 4th May 2021

Annie Ernaux — Books on the HIll

Annie Ernaux was born in 1940 and is one of France’s greatest contemporary writers. Many of her works have become classics in France in their own right, as well as being translated into several languages and published across the world.

Ernaux was born in the town of Yvetot in Normandy to parents who owned a grocery store. Her humble background and family life are the subject of many of her books, including A Man’s Place (La Place), which talks about Ernaux’s father’s life story, his long workin

Books on the HIll • 28th March 2021

Jenny~ Eight female poets to explore — Books on the HIll

March is Women’s History Month, and what better time to read some poetry written by women you may not have explored before? Here are a few of my favourite female poets, whose work is definitely worth reading.

British poet Alice Oswald’s most famous collection is entitled Dart, and it won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002. A combination of poetry and prose, the collection follows the journey of the River Dart in Devon from Dartmoor to Dartmouth, exploring the lives of the people the river meets alon

Books on the HIll • 25th March 2021

Rediscovering your Reading Rhythm with Jenny — Books on the HIll

Reading can require a lot of focus, especially for longer or heavier books. Sometimes, this concentration can be hard to come by – we’ve all been there. Here are a few of my tips for getting back into reading when you’ve been struggling to find the motivation, and some book recommendations to get you started.

It’s a good feeling to be able to sit and read a book in an afternoon, and sometimes it’s just what is needed in order to rediscover the motivation to get reading again. For this reason, I

Books on the HIll • 4th March 2021

Simone de Beauvoir — Books on the HIll

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris on 9th January 1908, and she became one of France’s most influential and significant writers. She was born to a bourgeois family in the sixth arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Latin Quarter in the fifth arrondissement. This area is called the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) for its position on the river Seine, and before long was known as an intellectual and creative centre for philosophers, writers, artists, and filmmakers in the 1950s.

In her teenage years

The Cambridge Language Collective • 2nd March 2021

The Arbëreshë: Italy’s Albanian Diaspora —

For centuries, Italy’s location has given the country a distinct and varied cultural identity. Historically, Venice served as a melting pot of cultures – you need only think of Shakespeare’s Othello for an example of this. Over the years, various Italian states have changed hands numerous times; when Nice was ceded to France in 1860, for example, inhabitants of the region were split between feeling French and feeling Italian. The north-eastern city of Trieste belonged to Slovenia until 1920 at t