by Leah Janeczko Dear reader, October has been quite a month! San Girolamo – St. Jerome, patron saint of translators – has accompanied us down a long, scenic, winding path through the Italian literary landscape on a discovery of great Italian books in English translation. Long, not because it has lasted thirty-one days but because … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.50: One Hundred Cantos
by Michael Palma Dante’s contemporary fortunes have been especially various, I believe, in the United States and Great Britain, where translations have appeared, and continue to appear, at a remarkable rate. About a decade ago someone observed that the first ten years of the new century had seen the publication of at least ten new … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.49: A New Translation of Dante: The Music I Kept Hearing in My Head
by Leah Janeczko Three years ago, three friends in India who loved reading – Harsha, Giri and Anil, who had been friends for 25 years and studied mechanical engineering together – started a podcast dedicated to novels and short stories in their native language of Telugu. They called the program Harshaneeyam, a play on words … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.48: The Harshaneeyam Podcast and Its Italian Literature in Translation Playlist
by Michael F. Moore Martina Franca, in Puglia, is the hometown of the writer Mario Desiati, and the setting of almost all of his novels. The town, and indeed the region as a whole, is so ubiquitous in his latest, the Strega Prize-winning Spatriati, as to become one of the book’s main characters, alongside the … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.47: Reclaiming Puglia in Mario Desiati’s Spatriati
by Jeanne Bonner Jamie Richards has translated the works of some of the most celebrated writers working in Italy today, including Igiaba Scego and Viola di Grado. She won the 2024 National Translation Award in Prose for her translation The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi, which was published by And Other Stories. Her translation was … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.46: Q&A with Translator Jamie Richards Conducted by Jeanne Bonner
by Ruth Clarke From Another World is primarily the story of Khaled, a child migrant who has decided to retrace his journey back home, away from a Europe that he fails to understand. At the same time, it is the story of Karolina, a single mother in Brussels searching for her missing teenage son. She … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.39: Translating Sensitive Content in From Another World by Evelina Santangelo
by Stiliana Milkova Rousseva In the wake of Elena Ferrante’s global popularity, it has become somewhat of a trend for mainstream publications to “introduce” or “discover” other Italian women writers in English translation. This trend arises partly from readers’ curiosity and thirst for new voices and partly from critics’ and publishers’ intent to capitalize on … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.34: Natalia Ginzburg and Italian Women Writers in Translation
by Stiliana Milkova Rousseva In April 2023, the PEN America Translation Committee’s Manifesto on the state of literary translation in America called on editors, reviewers, and review publications to acknowledge the translator’s agency in the creation of a literary text. In other words, the Manifesto called for combatting the prejudices against translation and translators in … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.29: Reading in Translation: Shaping a Culture of Reviewing Italian Literature in Translation
by Leah Janeczko A wealthy lord summons an artist to his palace to paint murals in the three windowless rooms to which his young son is confined due to a life-threatening illness. The artist’s boundless generosity turns the simple commission into a years-long labor of love, and his paintings allow the boy to vicariously experience … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.28: Glowrushes by Roberto Piumini: A Timeless Italian Masterpiece
by Karen Whittle Putting on her second skin, in performances consisting of photography, drawing, sculpture, video and installation, Italian artist Zoè Gruni seeks to experience/experiment life through art. Her artistic research has always stemmed from the need to exorcise the fear of what is different. Her body, clothed/shielded/protected/filtered, acts as a catalyst to reach out … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.21: Exorcising the Fear of What Is Different: The Art Book Segunda Pele by Zoè Gruni
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 