THE ITALIANIST: Riveting Italian Books You Need to Know About with Leah Janeczko: Italian Lit Month – Treat Your Bookshelf to a Taste of Italy!

What an exciting year for Italian publishing!

With two books on the 2024 International Booker Prize Longlist (Domenico Starnone’s The House on Via Gemito in Oonagh Stransky’s translation, and Veronica Raimo’s Lost on Me in my own); with Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend translated by Ann Goldstein named the #1 Best Book of the 21st Century in The New York Times; with English readers finally discovering Italy’s most famous and most widely read novel, Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed, thanks to Michael F. Moore’s award-winning translation; with a brilliant new version in rhyme of Dante’s Divine Comedy by Michael Palma coming out in December; and, on top of it all, with Italy enjoying the prestigious role of Guest of Honor at the 2024 Frankfurter Buchmesse (the world’s largest trade fair for books) from October 16th to 20th, Italy’s publishing industry has great reason to celebrate.

We Italian-to-English literary translators are also taking part in this year’s festivities through a brand new initiative: Italian Lit Month. From October 1st to 31st, in this daily blog we will tell the world about our translations, our craft, and the Italian literary landscape that so inspires us.

I am honored to be guest curator of Italian Lit Month and am grateful to our host, the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI), for giving us this precious opportunity.

The GLLI’s stated purpose is “to raise the visibility of world literature for adults and children at the local, national and international levels. We intend to do so by facilitating close and direct collaboration between translators, librarians, publishers, editors, and educators, because we believe that these groups in collaboration are uniquely positioned to help libraries provide support and events to engage readers of all ages in a library framework that explores and celebrates literature from around the world.”

Over the years, the GLLI has hosted a wide variety of month-long blogs celebrating literature in translation from around the globe. We have scheduled its first-ever blog dedicated to Italian literature in English translation for October 2024 so that it coincides with the Frankfurt book fair.

Italian Lit Month will offer over 50 articles of incredible variety, with fiction, non-fiction, poetry, picture books and graphic novels; featuring works by Domenico Starnone, Natalia Ginzburg, Roberto Piumini, Paolo Volponi, Stefano Mancuso, Viola Ardone, Andrea Camilleri, Giovanni Pascoli and many others; with reviews, essays, interviews, book club discussion questions and video readings; with information about translation workshops, special events and literary journals; and, above all, with the passion, reverence and devotion shared by all those who translate Italian literature into English.

By contributing to Italian Lit Month, over 30 literary translators will contribute to the success of this important year for Italian publishing and help Italian books travel the globe to find new homes for themselves on English speakers’ bookshelves. We have kept our pieces short so that even if you have a busy schedule you can easily follow us daily all month long.

The blog launched on October 1st with my introductory piece as its guest curator: Italian Lit Month: A Chorus of Voices. In it I talk about all the well-justified excitement currently surrounding Italian literature; the recent surge in funding provided to foreign publishers of Italian books; the major publishing and translation events taking place in October; what our followers can expect from Italian Lit Month; and why I was certain my fellow translators would make phenomenal contributors. I can assure you they’ve even exceeded my expectations. Just look at the pieces we’ve come out with in only the first week!

Howard Curtis, who has translated hundreds of books, mostly fiction, presents his English version of Beppe Fenoglio’s A Private Affair. This 1963 novel about a personal conflict unfolding as World War II and the partisan struggle rage in the background is such an important classic of modern Italian literature that it has been filmed three times.

Nanette McGuinness shares with us not one or two titles but Three Fun, Fascinating Italian Books for Children and Young Adults: a picture book introducing youngsters to the world of fungi; a middle-school graphic novel about a girl who dreams of learning ballet; and a YA biographical graphic novel about Audrey Hepburn, with a preface written by her son.

Johanna Bishop introduces us to The Florence Review, Italy’s First Bilingual Literary Mag showcasing Italian prose and poetry. The parallel texts by expert authors and translators is a precious resource particularly for students studying Italian who want to get a feel for the varied landscape of the country’s contemporary literature.

Lisa Mullenneaux conducts an Interview with Jenny McPhee, Translator of Elsa Morante’s Lies and Sorcery. It took Jenny over five long years to complete this 800-page masterpiece, which parodies a mix of styles, including popular romantic fiction, epic poetry, tragic myth, the epistolary novel, the picaresque, and the heroic adventure novel.

Oonagh Stransky, who was longlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize for Domenico Starnone’s The House on Via Gemito, celebrates her forthcoming translation of another work by Starnone by sharing with us an excerpt of her Reader’s Guide to The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan. In it she explores elements of the symbolism, humor and language encountered in this 2021 novel.

Emma Mandley turns readers young and old into lifelong sky-gazers with her translation Cloud Atlas: Everything You Need to Know About Clouds, a delightfully illustrated picture book written by Sarah Zambello and illustrated by Susy Zanella.

Tina Kover, Charlotte Coombe and I offer a look at (and a listen to) their YouTube channel Translators Aloud, on which literary translators read excerpts of their works. Our Italian Lit Month blog could fit only 30 contributors into its 31-day lineup of articles, but happily the channel’s Italian playlist adds many other voices to our chorus of translators!

Gregory Conti previews an important non-fiction title in his piece Plants Are Us: Stefano Mancuso’s Phytopolis, a book that discusses not only the problem of urban warming but also its potential solutions. As readers await the book’s April release, he invites them to delve into his three previous translations of Mancuso, who is Italy’s best known botanist.

This is just the start of an exciting celebration of Italian literature in English translation that will come out day after day all October long on the GLLI website, on Facebook @GlobalLitinLibs, and on X @GlobalLitin, bearing the hashtag #ItalianLitMonth.

By Leah Janeczko

Guest curator, Italian Lit Month