Italy: A Traveler's Literary Companion

Traveler's Literary Companion

by Lawrence Venuti (Translator)

Italy’s rising literary stars join some of its best-known writers — including Nobel-laureate Luigi Pirandello, Natalia Ginzburg, Alberto Moravia, and Antonio Tabucchi — to take the reader on a panoramic tour of both city and countryside, across the social spectrum, surveying the country’s rich cultural history. Explore Italy’s popular tourist destinations and out-of-the-way spots under the fresh and even startling light cast by these twenty-three diverse and exciting stories, most of which are available here in English for the first time. For those who wish to reach beyond the stereotypes and get an insider’s view to discover an Italy that’s off the beaten path, as well as new insights along familiar, well-traveled roads, these stories — arranged geographically for the traveler, armchair or otherwise — are an excellent place to start. Contributors include Barbara Alberti, Corrado Alvaro, Romano Bilenchi, Massimo Bontempelli, Dino Buzzati, Andrea Camilleri, Natalia Ginzburg, Claudio Magris, Marilia Mazzeo, Luigi Malerba, Dacia Maraini, Maria Messina, Alberto Moravia, Aldo Palazzeschi, Goffredo Parise, Luigi Pirandello, Domenico Rea, Mario Rigoni Stern, Lalla Romano, Alberto Savinio, Tiziano Scarpa, Antonio Tabucchi, and Federigo Tozzi.

Genres: Italy, Fiction, Short Stories

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Born in Philadelphia, Venuti graduated from Temple University. He has long lived in New York City. In 1980 he completed the Ph.D. in English at Columbia University. That year he received the Renato Poggioli Award for Italian Translation for his translation of Barbara Alberti's novel Delirium.

Venuti is currently professor of English at Temple University. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Columbia University, University of Trento, University of Mainz, Barnard College, and Queen's University Belfast.

He is a member of the editorial or advisory boards of Reformation: The Journal of the Tyndale Society, The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication, TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Redaction, Translation Studies, Target: An International Journal of Translation Studies, and Palimpsestes. He has edited special journal issues devoted to translation and minority (The Translator in 1998) and poetry and translation (Translation Studies in 2011). His translation projects have won awards and grants from the PEN American Center (1980), the Italian government (1983), the National Endowment for the Arts (1983, 1999), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (1989). In 1999 he held a Fulbright Senior Lectureship in translation studies at the University of Vic (Spain).

In 2007 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his translation of Giovanni Pascoli's poetry and prose.

In 2008 his translation of Ernest Farrés's Edward Hopper: Poems won the Robert Fagles Translation Prize.

Reviews

[Emily G]

Perfect book for people like me, who jumps around, reading multiple books at the same time. Amazing writers, each with a different colored glass from which they tell the story of Italy. Makes me want to live there.

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of Italian writers edited and translated by Lawerence Venuti, published 2003, with the dates of publication from throughout the 20th century as far as I can tell, from the first few decades such as 1918’s “The Shawl” by Maria Messina, next to last story in the book, to 1999’s “We’re Talking Millions” by Andrea Camilleri, last story in the book. There are twenty-three stories, most appearing for the first time in English. Each story has a paragraph biography of the author, talking some about their best works available in English. Each story is linked to a particular place in Italy, mentioned on the top of the right page, such as Milan, Rome, Venice or Sicily. Some regions get more than one story (Rome has five) while some regions didn’t get any (I didn’t see any stories connected to Sardinia). Not an expert on Italian literature, I had only encountered three of the authors before; Antonio Tabucchi (his name came up several times in my readings on Portugal), Camilleri (I had read his Inspector Montalbano novel _The Shape of Water_ and his “We’re Talking Millions” is a Montalbano short story), and Tiziano Scarpa (his _Venice Is a Fish_ is on my to-be-read shelf).

Venuti discussed how he tried to pick stories that had a strong association with particular places, though I found several if they did have a connection, it was subtle, maybe too subtle for me. Many were quite strong, such as the poverty and insularity of rural Sicilian life in “The Shawl” very much like the writings of Giovanni Verga, the vivid descriptions of Capri in “Noontide at Anacapri” by Alberto Savinio, and the evocative descriptions of Naples in “The American Woman” by Domenico Rea had a strong sense of place. Venice having an extremely strong sense of place even to its inhabitants was a key part of the surreal and satirical “Buit to Kill” by Tiziano Scarpa (one of several stories that had observations by the author, with in the story one character lamenting about Venice that it is a “city where no space exists to build anything, where one can only restore, renovate, redecorate, respect the old, venerate the ancient, worship the decrepit”).

Several didn’t have a strong sense of place like “Summer” by Natalia Ginzburg, connected to Turin but to me didn’t really bring to mind Turin from my limited knowledge, but instead were more linked to periods of Italian history; one line was “At this point I no longer desired to die, but neither did I desire to live, and I dawdled at the office or in the streets, with friends, men and woman, people who wanted to teach me how I had to save myself” which while it didn’t sense of place, did have a strong sense of time, discussing post-World War II ennui and social alienation. Another was “Music Lessons” by Claudio Magris which is a story that explores in part the Jewish experience in Fascist Italy.

The stories range very widely in style, from hardboiled detective story like “We’re Talking Millions” to realist verismo rural Sicilian poor story in “The Shawl” to a rather disturbing tale from the point of view of a child about abuse in “Wicked Memories” by Barbara Alberti to fantastical Twilight Zone-esque _ tale “The Bewitched Jacket” by Dino Buzzati (an engaging tale about how sudden and apparently endless wealth made the main character say “my conscience was degraded, becoming more and more vile” yet also the “more one gets, the more one wants”) to a coming of age story that also explores regional prejudices of urban Florence against rural Tuscany in “A Geographical Error” by Romano Bilenchi to one that is both a travelogue and has an actual ghost from Ancient Rome in “Noontide at Anacapri” by Alberto Savinio.

Has a two-page map, a preface, and two pages discussing further readings.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better in concept than execution, this slender volume was enjoyable as an anthology of Italian writers, some well-known in the English-speaking world (Pirandello, for instance), while others are hardly known outside Italy. The intent of the volume however is to provide something in the way of a literary Baedeker for various regions, cities, and sub-regions of Italy. The chapters are divided into north (Turin, Portofino, Milan, Venice, Veneto, Trieste), center (Tuscany, Florence, Rome), and south (Naples, Capri, Calabria, Sicily). Some cities and sub-regions only have one excerpt devoted to them, others have several, but in most cases the location is just that and there is not necessarily any insight given or implied about the character of the place or what a traveler might expect from it. The most noteworthy exceptions to that observation are Alberto Savinio's remarkable "Noontide at Anacapri" which paints a vivid and indelible portrait of that island, and Romano Bilenchi's "A Geographical Error". There are some other very good stories herein, of which I would single out Goffredo Paresi's darkly humorous "Well Off", Corrado Alvaro's heartbreaking "Honeymoon in Naples", and Luigi Pirandello's "The Black Kid."

[Cal A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shows a darker side to Italian culture. While we are used to most people talking about the dolce vita, this book instead criticizes each region in its own way, which makes for an interesting perspective. I do enjoy that, and I loved the selections. The works here are also very dissectable and interesting to deep-dive into — they're not obvious at all. Taking some points off because 1) it can feel a bit disorganized and some of the headers are incorrect (i.e the Umbria chapter is labeled Tuscany IIRC) 2) I don't possibly see how anyone who doesn't know much about Italy could ever get enjoyment out of this collection. The stories' connections to each region are very subtle and metaphorical and I only understood many things because I'm an Italian studies major at uni.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a delighttful collection of short stories by Italians about Italy. Part of the charm lies in getting a glimpse of authentic people, in real places, doing normal things through the lens of Italians. More stories take places in Italy than any other country on the continent, and most are written by visitors to the pennisula, but these are unique and worth reading.

[Karen]

This book was a gift from a friend. I had not read a short story collection in a while and it was really enjoyable. I was able to research each author and see what other works that they had in English. I think I will definitely read some of these authors' novels just to get a better sense of the Italian culture and history through the different era represented.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this to read while travelling in Italy. Although the stories are arranged by town/location, the actual locations didn't play much into the stories.

[Paula]

Didn't have enough time before my Italy trip to finish this book. Now it's not so relevant anymore so I stopped readig it.