I came across the work of Mario Rigoni Stern completely by chance, picking up one of his books in an idle moment at a railway station some forty years ago. But it was only many years later that I finally got around to reading it, and I enjoyed the book so much that I felt the need to translate it into English. The process of doing this led me to research the author’s life and times, and particularly the history and geography of the plateau around Asiago where he spent almost all his life, and which he wrote about with such feeling. I have since made several visits to that region, and read almo ..read more

Please find the latest press release for the EWF2 here ..read more

A quick note on this month’s Italianist: some readers may find one or both of the main topics disturbing, as the book deals with the themes of loss of a parent and the BDSM world. She loved diving when she was younger. She’d put on her goggles and fins and wouldn’t leave the water until her hands were covered in seashells. One afternoon, she had been swimming close to the buoys, a large vibrant red shape on the clean seabed: a starfish. She had dived down towards the sand, grabbed it, and pushed herself back to the surface. She had rubbed her fingers over its slippery and soft tentacles. She’d ..read more

My love, you said you were a wolf, and I worshipped you the messy little hairs of your pelt, and I worshipped you along your rubbed-dirt paths and with my face turned towards gunshots, I howled like you; it was dark, and night, and all I heard was that I don't exist... You said, my love, you were a wolf, I looked at your hands, your paws, your paws, your hands; it was night, it was dark, and I felt that, until then, I hadn't existed... The child was crying in the distance, we were surrounded by a wedding, you and I had huddled under a table; let's sneak away, like wolves... and I worshipped y ..read more

Granta magazine’s ‘Deutschland’ issue is an absolute treat for Germanophiles. Editor Thomas Meaney’s introduction considers the state of play in German literature since the Second World War, as well as Germany’s contemporary political landscape. He notes the pre-eminence of post-war German cinema in claiming the avant-garde artistic limelight, as well as the tendency for German-language literature from outside Germany – from Austria, Switzerland, and Romania – to offer a more thorough critical interrogation of post-war German culture and society than domestic literature. Meaney suggests that w ..read more

I have been meaning to write about this month’s book since it was recommended to me almost a year ago. But Stella Poli’s La gioia avvenire is not an easy read, nor easy to write about, nor is the subject matter easy: child abuse, sexual assault, bureaucracy, legal red tape, and support for the abused – or lack thereof.  Allow me, then, to start at the beginning, with my translation of the opening page: You should never talk about things. Things – barely cracked open – create a series of connections, implications, filaments of a purple and viscous nature such as those photos of synapses i ..read more

Nekem Ne tölts el ostoba reménnyel Ne vakíts el ígérettel A magány igazi, s ha énképem Albumába lesek sok közös fotón ott van velem. Igen. Gyakran pózolok vele. Kéz a kézben járunk. Neked nyűg Nekem lehet más is. Például Társam az örök utazásban ott van velem. Ne hidd, hogy bánom. Egy részem Nem szelektálom. Nem hagyom, Hogy kárba vesszen a sok Kettesben töltött idő, te elmész, míg Ő marad nekem. Végtére is ki mondja meg Mi vagyok. Ösztönös állat. Magamat folyton felfalom, Amit a csonton kívül mindig marad Az a magány. Nem hagy befejezetlenül. Kitölt. Az Ő szemén át a világ letargikus ug ..read more

Going to the 'red zone' of war, every time I catch myself in an extreme diligence when preparing my own body: I shave everything carefully, I'm doing manicures for a long time, I choose good underwear. This's how one prepares for a special intimate date. 'You never know who will undress you. Maybe even tonight,' – my grandma used to say having something special on her mind. I also have something special on my mind. I also can't help thinking about a possible date with that mistress who has cold eyes, wet fingers and hair that smells of black meadow flowers. 'Come on, not today,' I say. 'Pleas ..read more

This month in La Española we are travelling deep into Asturias with an extract from Xaime Martínez’s debut novel, La fuercia, translated into English by Robin Munby. The Force follows Martín Feito, a writer who has been sent to a fictionalised Asturian village, Chaneces, to finish his book. However, as he struggles to work on his novel, he becomes increasingly caught up in the village’s surreal, absurd happenings, and the prospect of a book ever being written fades further and further into the distance. Set in a valley dominated by a sinister thermal power station, whose huge chimney and low h ..read more

‘See, kid. There are two types of people in the world. Those who run and those who stay still. They’re staying still and we’re running. Do you understand?’ ‘No.’ ‘We don’t kill like they do.’ ‘But we’re still killing people.’ ‘Yes, but not like them.’ ‘Cielo, we kill just like them.’ He sighs, exasperated.  ‘They kill because someone said: Kill. We don’t do that.’ He tucks his hair behind his ear. He reminds me of my father, but it’s only for a moment. Just a moment.  ‘Maybe when the war actually ends, all of us will be buried already. Because of starvation, because of those bastards ..read more