A Fictional Inquiry @NewVesselPress remedies a lack observed earlier in The Modern Novel: “that Lo stadio di Wimbledon ... has never been translated into English is a sad commentary on the state of the novel in the English language.” www.themodernnovel.org/europe/w-eur...

Have an essay you think would be a good fit for Minor Literature[s]? Submissions are now open. Send something good. Something smart. Something strange.

Daniele Del Giudice's first published novel (Einaudi, 1983).

Andrea Canobbio: "La figura del matematico mi è sempre sembrata eccezionalmente ricca di possibili sviluppi narrativi, perché ambigua: da un lato l’apparente certezza del calcolo, delle formule, delle dimostrazioni, ... www.traspi.net/canobbio-per...

“How is it the books that should be popular aren’t in fact popular? And why are the books that shouldn’t be popular selling so many copies?” --Lincoln Michel @TheLincoln reflects on the "decline of literature" discourse. tinyurl.com/yc3k24fd

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. suggested that Western-style charismatic politics, inherent in a single individual, ended with Hitler, but was apparently wrong. Molly Worthen, Spellbound LARB, lareviewofbooks.org/article/unve...

A new entry into “let’s make translators extinct”: I fondatori dell’impresa ... hanno tenuto a precisare che non è loro intenzione sostituirsi ai traduttori umani, quanto piuttosto favorire una più ampia diffusione della letteratura. Marina Russo's Biblit tinyurl.com/55atfpht

Imagine if this were a jigsaw puzzle...!

“To me, writing is an act of listening. … The writing is this listening, to write is to listen.” - Jon Fosse in an interview in The New Yorker. Seems analogous to translation, which is to listen to what the author writes. tinyurl.com/ydk3tvfv

I imagine you have your reasons for not labeling these as to location or year, though I always find myself trying to identify the setting...

Thank you for posting from my translation of Antonio Scurati's M Son of the Century (HarperCollins).

Today our free newsletter subscribers received a brilliant short story from our Summer 2025 issue, Monica Pareschi’s “The Seagulls,” translated from Italian by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social. nimrodjournal.substack.com/p/the-seagulls

"Appealing literary quest...An exploration of: 'why write?' and the meaning of the activity...this is an intriguing 'fictional inquiry.'" @maorthofer.bsky.social on A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Giudice, translated by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social. www.complete-review.com/reviews/ital...

Giovanni Padua scrive del romanzo di @vannisantoni.bsky.social: "Il romanzo di Santoni si innesta consapevolmente nell’immaginario narrativo degli shōnen, dove il sogno è il principio motore di ogni azione e trasformazione..." rivistastanca.com/il-pesce-che...

"A metaphysical detective story and a modern Italian classic ... a brilliant meditation on the mysteries that inform literature."—Mark Haber, author of St. Sebastian's Abyss on A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Giudice, translator @annemilanoappel.bsky.social. newvesselpress.com/books/a-fict...

Noah Slaughter reviews A Fictional Inquiry by Daniele Del Giudice (New Vessel Press, 2025): “A slow-moving, contemplative novel that “often feels like a series of riddles or questions” ... “the narrator himself remains largely an enigma to us.” www.full-stop.net/2025/05/23/r...

“I expected the bookshop to be small, reserved for a select few. It is a monument. Monumental in its arrangement...” —An excerpt from Daniele Del Giudice’s “A Fictional Inquiry” (tr. @annemilanoappel.bsky.social) @newvesselpress.bsky.social. Art by Rosaire Appel. evergreenreview.com/read/a-ficti...

An excerpt of A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Guidice translated by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social in @evergreenreview.bsky.social. Calvino called it a simple book, "straightforward to read, but at the same time possessing great depth and extraordinary quality." evergreenreview.com/read/a-ficti...

“The Seagulls” by @MonicaPareschi came out this week in @NimrodJournal @BorisDralyuk It's from her collection Inverness, @PolidoroEditore. It's always a satisfying thrill to see a writer I hadn't translated before in print, especially in an excellent journal I hadn't worked with before!

An excerpt from my translation of A Fictional Inquiry by Daniele Del Guidice is currently featured in The Evergreen Review: evergreenreview.com/read/a-ficti... Forthcoming from New Vessel Press in Oct. 2025, the novel was originally published as Lo stadio di Wimbledon, Einaudi editore.

The funding crisis for the arts is making it hard to have to turn away from the pleas that fill our inboxes. One journal wrote: "As of this year, all external forms of support are gone." Readers, authors & other supporters can't possibly fill the void left by recent funding losses. Not sustainable.

Vanni Santoni comments that literary journals act as humus and hothouse (or gym or dojo) for new voices (“le riviste fanno da humus e vivaio – o palestra, o dojo – per le nuove voci”).

"Seven Times Happy," an excerpt from Vendesi croce by Muin Masri, appears in the May/June 2025 print issue of World Literature Today, worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/may/sev...

"Seven Times Happy," an excerpt from Vendesi croce by @muinmasri, appears in the May/June 2025 print issue of @worldlittoday, worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/may/sev...

Daniele Del Giudice's final goodbye to Antarctica in Orizzonte mobile as the plane lifts off: “beyond the row of windows, ice fields and reliefs slid by swiftly along with a few people I had come to like, and a lone penguin, tottering or dancing, who knows.” www.tandfonline.com/eprint/DRMTI...

Championed by Italo Calvino as a "very simple book, straightforward to read, but at the same time possessing great depth and extraordinary quality." ARCs of A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Giudice, translated by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social, available now. newvesselpress.com/books/a-fict...

Goslings in parade formation

Premio Strega 2025:Davide Turrini scrive: “Fuori dai dodici finalisti non solo Einaudi, ma tra i grandi editori anche La Nave di Teseo e Bompiani.” tinyurl.com/fd3rj65c

My translation of an excerpt from Between the Lines: The Joy of Translating (Laterza), Silvia Pareschi’s book on the tantalizing challenges relished by translators, is now online at www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YJ8CD...

Author Kevin McLaughlin writes “copyright does *not* prohibit uses other than display and distribution ... eight US courts ... have ruled that unless the AI developers are displaying or distributing copyrighted works to their end users, it's not infringement.”

“Consequences," a story I translated by Giovanna Daddi, was published yesterday in the Los Angeles Review: losangelesreview.org/consequences...

Combativo 8M, traductoras y compañeras 💜✊🏽

A piece I wrote about Claudio Magris’ most recent book, Tempo curvo a Krems, was published today in New Italian Books: www.newitalianbooks.it/a-book-id-li...

When I took this photo the other day, I had no idea it was likely meant to be a celebration of a special day! Then a friend told me about Clean Monday...

Richard Charkin reflects on the “magic bullets” publishers may be looking for at the upcoming London Book Fair to address the industry’s issues. And whether any of them will work. publishingperspectives.com/2025/02/appr...

A quirky little story by Daniele Del Giudice in EQMM: www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/current-issu...

An official certification system launched today by The Authors Guild offers writers and publishers a way to indicate that their book was written by a human and not by AI. I would hope a reader could tell the difference!

Canada geese, like sentinels...

A mind-blowing exchange with the receptionist at the dental office today: "What work do you do?" "I’m a translator." (blank look) "I translate books from Italian into English." "Oh. I never heard of that..."

Los Angeles, I see you. I see your tears, your generosity, your creativity, your beautiful mutual aid. You were never an old or stable city; you were a city of invention and imagination and change. You are maybe right now you are your best as well as most devastated self. 1906 account.

A review of Pico Iyer’s “Aflame: Learning From Silence” recalls the horrific fires in LA. The Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur where Iyer sits in silence is described as a remote oasis of quiet and a perennial target for the area’s frequent wildfires. datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/aflame...

In today's WSJ, Sam Sacks observes that unlike its critical role in the past century “today the novel occupies a different and undoubtedly subordinate position in the cultural imagination. Though the power of fiction has not declined, its audience has…” From wsj.com

Due amici di lunga data, DarioVoltolini e Muin Masri, insieme per parlare del libro di Masri: Vendesi Croce (Edizioni Nautilus). quotidianocanavese.it/cultura-even...

"The paradox is that we are all tourists who despise tourists. When we go somewhere, we believe that we are mere travelers." --Marco d'Eramo writing in Compact magazine: www.compactmag.com/article/towa...

Readers write them to translators too. And it is very satisfying to read one.

Good news for libraries: @penguinrandom launched a grant program with United for Libraries to support Friends of Library organizations that raise money for local libraries, and in-kind grants for libraries to purchase PRH books. tinyurl.com/bdhsx4nr

.., not only from language to language and place to place but more broadly as the translation of lived reality into written form" --Edwin Frank, Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel

"'In translation' was the key, opening the way into the story of the novel, which was, as I suddenly saw it, a story of translation in the largest sense...

The Authors Guild on AI licensing: "The Authors Guild @AuthorsGuild believes that if publishers wish to license AI training rights to the books they have published, they must seek the authors’ permission by separate agreement." authorsguild.org/news/ai-lice...