by Scott Belluz

“The Americans dreaming of Italy and the Italians dreaming of America have finished their aperitifs by now.” Masneri, Michele. Paradiso (S. Belluz, Trans). Adelphi, 2024.

I chuckled when I read this line from Michele Masneri’s latest novel, in which he describes the scene at an outdoor café where his protagonist Federico, a Milanese journalist on assignment in Rome, wanders back to his hotel on a hot summer’s night. As I was reading, it was nearly aperitivo time in Toronto, where I’d spent the afternoon swinging in my backyard hammock, enjoying Federico’s sly observations about contemporary life in Milan and Rome and, yes, like those Americans he writes about, dreaming of Italy.

Masneri got me thinking about the role that travel escapism plays in selling many of our books in translation, particularly Italian literature. Of course, it’s wonderful when a book has strong sense of place that can immerse the reader in its setting — but to what extent is this escapism actually a requirement for books in translation? What kinds of Italian books are most easily exportable? What brands a book, in the eyes of publishers, booksellers and readers, as Italian? Whether we’ve read them or not, we’re all aware of countless Italian mafia stories, books celebrating Italian food and cooking, tales of art heists and the Roman Empire. The publishing industry seems overly attached to books that transport the reader to a specific Italian region, a specific time — books where the setting itself is the main character, whether they be bestsellers like Andrea Camilleri’s contemporary Sicilian detective novels, family sagas like Stefania Auci’s I leoni di Sicilia set in 19^th-Century Palermo, or of course Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series that begin in 1950s Naples. Anne Goldstein’s translations of the latter are one of the greatest recent successes in translated fiction, sending many a tourist to Naples, and the publishing industry in mad pursuit of the new Ferrante. And while this has led to a recent revival of exceptional Italian female authors such as Goliarda Sapienza and Alba de Céspedes, there’s a risk that these publishing trends ultimately offer foreign readers merely a retrograde, reductionist version of Italy. I understand that books must be blurbed and categorized to be sold, but I fear that Italian books in translation are increasingly bound by cheap taglines that do not keep pace with Italy’s vibrant and diverse literary landscape.

The problem is frequently compounded when foreign writers set their own books in Italy that perpetuate stereotypes about Italians. I don’t mean to slight fine novels such as Dominic Smith’s Return to Valetto, André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name or Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins, but their preoccupations assume an English-language readership that prefers their Italians romantic and passionate, flawed yet fascinatingly Felliniesque and living in a mythic post-war, preferably sun-drenched region of Italy.

I’m certainly not calling for the cessation of novels like those mentioned above but rather a broadening of what might be allowed to constitute “Italian Literature.” After all, many of the contemporary writers I’m excited about translating and pitching to publishers are not necessarily preoccupied with Italy or their own Italian-ness. Rather, they are writing forward-looking fiction. They are writing hybrid books that defy genre classification. When I first became interested in translation, I naively began translating entire novels on spec, written by authors such as Luciano Funetta and Alcide Pierantozzi, along with non-fiction by authors like Andrea Gentile and Gianluca Didino whom I’d later come to learn were early exponents of a sub-genre called “New Italian Weird.” It’s difficult to describe what draws me to their writing. Using deeply personal influences and imagery, these authors obliquely probe reality in an unsettling way that’s both atypical of Italian culture and utterly electrifying. Although I’ve yet to successfully land these audacious books with English-language publishers, I’ve found it to be tremendously satisfying to publish other translations such as a short story by Funetta, while introducing exciting queer Italian voices like Gianluca Nativo and Jonathan Bazzi to English-speaking readers. I continue to seek out and translate compelling, contemporary Italian voices alongside a rewarding collaboration with the Pirandello Society of America’s Stories for a Year project, which will provide the first omnibus English-language translation of the short stories of one of Italy’s most famous and widely translated writers.

It is an exciting time to be a translator of Italian literature. According to nss magazine, the number of Italian books translated abroad has quadrupled over the past twenty-five years.  Italy is the guest of honor at this October’s Frankfurt Book Fair. I’m hopeful this surge in interest will give readers around the world the opportunity to encounter new Italian voices — but I also want to draw attention to which voices will be considered “Italian” enough to be heard. It’s heartening to see independent and nonprofit presses such as And Other Stories, Archipelago Books, Deep Vellum, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Other Press and Open Letter Books who are committed to working with often-unsung translators to bring timely and nuanced Italian perspectives to international readers. Here’s hoping the size of the aperture will also quadruple to encompass the plurality of diverse and disruptive voices on the Italian literary landscape – that all will be welcome at that café where we sit sipping our aperitifs and dreaming of other worlds more enthralling than we might have once imagined. 

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