Short Stories in Italian by Nick Roberts

Historical map of Sicily by Piri Reis, oriented to show north at top (public domain, Wikipedia)Įvery time I pick up this or another Inspector Montalbano mystery I can’t help myself: I always hear the wonderful strains of Franco Piersanti’s tango, the signature tune to RAI’s popular TV series.Īs a musician I love the quirky nature of this piece, the insistent dance rhythm, the melodic fragments promising but rarely delivering development, the dark chocolate of the double bass - Piersanti’s own instrument - counterpointing wind and upper string fragments. Continue reading “Lilith, the dragon and the frog prince” →

Nick Roberts (who translated a couple of the pieces) has done a great job selecting a variety in terms of subject, tone and style and English versions by Avril Bardoni, Sharon Wood, Ruth Feldman, Tim Parks, Edward Williams, Charles Caroe and Chris Roberts have - as far as I can tell from my very limited command of Italian - have been very readable without being departing from the originals.Īnd what of the stories themselves? Here are psychological portraits, tales with a sting in the tale, insightful social narratives, reported conversations, a youngster’s stream of consciousness piece, even a satire, all very different and, like courses at a dinner, each needing a little time to savour and digest before moving on. The authors whose names were familiar to me were Italo Calvino and Primo Levi, so it was interesting to comes across Leonardo Sciascia, Goffredo Parise, Stefano Benni and Antonio Tabucchi, while the female contributors who were included were Dacia Maraini, Susanna Tamaro and Sandra Petrignani. At a time of pandemic only virtual travel is possible, so these brief narratives have evoked Italian life and lives really well when physical travel has been out of the question. I’m not too sure why I hesitated because in translation they’ve been very satisfying, and although I’ve only read a selection of paragraphs from each story in the original the experience has been equally enlightening. Short stories in Italian / Racconti in Italiano.Įdited by Nick Roberts, Penguin Books 1999Ī volume of nine short stories by nine 20th-century Italian writers has been with me for a score of years, not exactly studiously ignored but still incomprehensibly remaining unread.

Short Stories in Italian by Nick Roberts