2024: 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 16 to 20, Italy’s publishing industry had great reason to celebrate. 

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

I was 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 scheduled its first-ever blog dedicated to Italian literature in English translation for October 2024 so that it coincided with the Frankfurt book fair.

Italian Lit Month offered 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 helped contribute to the success of this important year for Italian publishing and helped Italian books travel the globe to find new homes for themselves on English speakers’ bookshelves.

Our fifty posts, which contain 100 book, journal, website and film recommendations, are:

• n.1 by Leah Janeczko – Italian Lit Month: A Chorus of Voices
• n.2 by Howard Curtis – Beppe Fenoglio’s A Private Affair
• n.3 by Nanette McGuinness – Three Fun, Fascinating Italian Books for Children and Young Adults
• n.4 by Johanna Bishop – The Florence Review: Italy’s First Bilingual Lit Mag
• n.5 by Lisa Mullenneaux – Jenny McPhee, Translator of Lies and Sorcery, Interviewed by Lisa Mullenneaux
• n.6 by Oonagh Stransky –Who’s That Girl? A Reader’s Guide to The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan
• n.7 by Emma Mandley – Translating for Children: Cloud Atlas by Sarah Zambello and Susy Zanella
  
• n.8 by Leah Janeczko – Translators Aloud and Its Italian Playlist
• n.9 by Gregory Conti – Plants Are Us: Stefano Mancuso’s Phytopolis
• n.10 by Katherine Gregor – The Sorrows and Joys of Translating Italian Dialects (Part One)
  
• n.11 by Katherine Gregor – The Sorrows and Joys of Translating Italian Dialects (Part Two)
  
• n.12 by Will Schutt – On Fabio Pusterla’s Brief Homage to Pluto and Other Poems
• n.13 by Jamie Richards – Italian Graphic Narrative in Translation
  
• n.14 by Richard Dixon – The Nature of Reality and the Human Condition in 1950s Rural Italy, in Paolo Volponi’s The World Machine
  
• n.15 by Leah Janeczko – From Italian to the World: Literary Translators Help Italian Books Travel the Globe
• n.16 by Lori Hetherington – Translating Tuscan Tales
  
• n.17 by Chenxin Jiang – Geoffrey Brock on His Translation of Silvia Vecchini’s Young Adult Novel Before Nightfall
• n.18 by Ruth Chester – Encounters Through Translation
• n.19 by Anne Milano Appel – My White Whale: Translating Daniele Del Giudice
  
• n.20 by Paolo Grossi – NewItalianBooks.it: Your Portal to the World of Italian Publishing
  
• n.21 by Karen Whittle – Exorcising the Fear of What Is Different: The Art Book Segunda Pele by Zoè Gruni
  
• n.22 by Scott Belluz – Translation as Travel Escapism: A Cautionary Tale
  
• n.23 by Jeanne Bonner – Women and the Holocaust: Overlooked Stories
• n.24 by Elena Borelli – Convivial Poems by Giovanni Pascoli and the Podcast “An Ancient Language for a Modern Soul”
• n.25 by Wendell Ricketts – The Two Lucas
• n.26 by Lisa Mullenneaux – “Born a Rebel” Is a Cry for Gender Justice
• n.27 by Antonella Lettieri – Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter
• n.28 by Leah Janeczko – Glowrushes by Roberto Piumini: A Timeless Italian Masterpiece
• n.29 by Stiliana Milkova Rousseva – Reading in Translation: Shaping a Culture of Reviewing Italian Literature in Translation
• n.30 by Johanna Bishop – An Enticing Introduction to Contemporary Italian Poetry
• n.31 by Clarissa Botsford – No Means No, or Does It? A Moving Testament to a Young Woman’s Courage
• n.32 by Emma Mandley – Translating Art Books: Inside Pompeii by Luigi Spina
• n.33 by Oonagh Stransky – Abandonment: An Eritrean-Italian Story
• n.34 by Stiliana Milkova Rousseva – Natalia Ginzburg and Italian Women Writers in Translation
• n.35 by Katherine Gregor – Katherine Gregor and Babas Discuss How to Train Your Human: A Cat’s Guide
  
• n.36 by Karen Whittle – Walking the Philosophical Tightrope
• n.37 by Alex Valente – Playing Pretend in Dante’s Inferno (and Other Italian Stories)
• n.38 by Catherine Theis – Conversations: A Look Inside Jolanda Insana’s Slashing Sounds
• n.39 by Ruth Clarke – Translating Sensitive Content in From Another World by Evelina Santangelo
• n.40 by Jack Zipes – Encounters with Gianni Rodari and His Grammar of Fantasy
• n.41 by Richard Dixon – Vice Versa: Translators Across the Language Divide
• n.42 by Lori Hetherington – An Interview with Italian “Authorpreneur” Filippo Iannarone
• n.43 by Howard Curtis – Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich
  
• n.44 by Stephen Sartarelli – On Translating Camilleri: Notes from the Purer Linguistic Sphere of Translation 
  
• n.45 by Leah Janeczko – Six Italian Book Awards You Should Know About
  
• n.46 by Jeanne Bonner – Q&A with Translator Jamie Richards 
• n.47 by Michael F. Moore – Reclaiming Puglia in Mario Desiati’s Spatriati
• n.48 by Leah Janeczko – The Harshaneeyam Podcast and Its Italian Literature in Translation Playlist
• n.49 by Michael Palma – A New Translation of Dante: The Music I Kept Hearing in My Head
• n.50 by Leah Janeczko – One Hundred Cantos

Follow the links above to read all fifty of our Italian Lit Month posts on the GLLI’s website, and share post n.50 (which contains descriptions and links to them all) with others to help us make this a truly unforgettable moment for Italian publishing!

Leah Janeczko

Guest curator, Italian Lit Month

Read more about Leah here.