In a review of The Perfect Circle (World Edition Books) in Asymptote Journal, Gabrielle Stecher Woodward writes “Claudia Petrucci’s The Perfect Circle is a deceptive slow burn...” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/04...

Curious about the dynamics of their working relationship, I interviewed the prolific Max Lawton and his teammate Francesco Pacifico. You can read about them at Reading in Translation readingintranslation.com/2026/04/13/a...

We could not be more proud of our contributors Jennifer Reeser (Winter 2025) and Anne Milano Appel (Summer 2025), whose translations were chosen by the great Emily Wilson for inclusion in BLT 2027! @annemilanoappel.bsky.social @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social @deepvellum.bsky.social

Translators, were your books used without permission to train large language models? Reminder: Anthropic claims are due Monday, March 30. File a claim even if your publisher is filing one. To see if your work is eligible, check the Works List: secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

Ralf Biesemeier: “AI agrees with me. Almost always. Push back...and it reconsiders. Suggest an alternative...and it enthusiastically adopts it. It is...a yes-machine. Good thinking requires something that will tell you when your argument has a hole in it.” tinyurl.com/wwx2mtk2

A perfect circle of a narrative by Claudia Petrucci! Just out from World Editions.

Book mail: Shout it Out! (Gridalo!) by Roberto Saviano from Seven Stories Press

“One cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” Nabokov, Lectures on Lit. Sounds like he was referring to translators here. Despite his unfortunate description of translation as serving up the poet's head on a platter...

“Life and the act of writing it are brought into close affiliation.” —A review of Daniele Del Giudice's A Fictional Inquiry @NewVesselPress, 2025. “The narrative, though composed in an outwardly simple prose, is riven with narrative ellipses and ambiguity."—The Toe Rag, a quarterly print magazine

Galileo said “it is not enough to look, one must look with eyes that want to see.” Claudio Magris (in “Writing as Witness") affirms that a writer’s duty, as well as that of each of us, is to bear witness against injustice, lies, cruelty and oppression: yalebooks.yale.edu/2017/04/13/w...

Rachel Donadio writes: “in the seizure of power, ideology only goes so far... if a handful of skilled operatives manage to commandeer the mechanisms of the state... a leader can take control without mass support or even favorable circumstances." www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"Del Giudice recreates an existing landscape in miniature to play around with his protagonist . . . carefully brought to life in English by Appel, a fascinating early work about a man’s unwavering decision to choose literature... over a life." ---Asymptote www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/01...

A Fictional Inquiry, Del Giudice: "Floating between truth and conjecture, drifting through the cold fogs of London and Trieste, the novel poses questions about writing as a discipline situated at the murky intersection of art, history, and individual psychology." necessaryfiction.com/reviews/a-fi...

A FICTIONAL INQUIRY, written in the footsteps of a man of letters, @financialtimes.com: "Daniele Del Giudice’s first novel, finally available in English, creates a magical tension between an active life and the contemplative act of writing." Translated by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social

from Shout Out by Roberto Saviano (coming in 2026 from @sevenstories.bsky.social): Comedian Lenny Bruce “said that you should never deny people the chance to say 'fuck you,' because it’s denying them the chance to say 'fuck politics' to a government they don’t like...

The Financial Times: "Del Giudice’s languorous, meditative novel is now finally available in English, thanks to a disarming translation by Anne Milano Appel ... creates a nuanced, magical sense of tension between an active life and the contemplative nature of writing." www.ft.com/content/e345...

A FICTIONAL INQUIRY reviewed in @financialtimes.com : "Del Giudice’s languorous, meditative novel is now finally available in English, thanks to a disarming translation by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social ” newvesselpress.com/books/a-fict...

A FICTIONAL INQUIRY praised @thespectator1828.bsky.social as "a memorable metaphysical detective story" in "elegant translation"by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social about literary legend Bobi Bazlen who "brought out the first Italian editions of Freud, Kafka and Musil,but produced no writing of his own."

The Spectator magazine praises A FICTIONAL INQUIRY (New Vessel Press) as "a memorable metaphysical detective story ... But everything assumes another dimension if we know that the man at the centre of it all, Bobi Bazlen, really existed. ... " www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-ph...

"Explores the nature of perception while critiquing both writers and the writing life. Anglophones at last have an opportunity to engage with this intriguing and intellectually stimulating novel for the first time."—On the Seawall www.ronslate.com/on-a-fiction...

atest on my website: my re-review of Daniele del Giudice's A Fictional Enquiry about a journey to find why an Italian writer did not write shorturl.at/uHbAR tr @annemilanoappel.bsky.social from @newvesselpress.bsky.social

Read an excerpt from A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Giudice, translated from the Italian by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social, @literaryhub.bsky.social. This metaphysical detective story tells of an unnamed narrator visiting Trieste to retrace a fabled literary figure. lithub.com/a-fictional-...

“Even if it’s just a brief nap, like this half-hour one, afterward you have to start all over again.” Read from Daniele Del Giudice’s novel A Fictional Inquiry, translated by Anne Milano Appel. | Lit Hub Fiction lithub.com/a-fictional-...

Watch this intriguing video in which Daniele Del Giudice talks about the inspiration for his novel A FICTIONAL INQUIRY, the legendary literary figure Roberto Bazlen. Trieste-born Bazlen helped found one of Italy's most celebrated publishing houses, @adelphiedizioni.bsky.social vimeo.com/506207913

Today is publication day for A FICTIONAL INQUIRY by Daniele Del Giudice, translated by @annemilanoappel.bsky.social. This haunting novel, championed by Italo Calvino, is a modern Italian cult classic appearing in English for the first time. newvesselpress.com/books/a-fict...

An insightful review of Daniele Del Giudice’s “A Fictional Inquiry,” forthcoming from @NewVesselPress , by prof. Loredana Polezzi. I especially resonated with Polezzi’s personal touch about starting to read Del Giudice again. readingintranslation.com/2025/10/27/d...

A very perceptive review of Daniele Del Giuidice's A Fictional Inquiry, Tony. From New Vessel Press.

Congratulations to @wwborders.bsky.social for having now published ten Nobel laureates in their 22-year history as the home for international literature, the latest being László Krasznahorkai. And congratulations to all the translators who translated them.

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”).