The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories (A Penguin Classics Hardcover)
Brand: Penguin Classics
Color: Multicolor
Categories: Books, Literature & Fiction, World Literature



Dimensions: 6.38 x 1.31 x 9.51 inches
ISBN-13: 978-0241299838
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0241299837
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Print length: 528 pages
Publication date: September 10, 2019
subtitle: Hardcover – September 10, 2019
author: Visit Amazon's Jhumpa Lahiri Page search results Jhumpa Lahiri
review: Editorial Reviews Review “The perfect companion whenever I get around to that trip to Rome.” — Jeva Lange, The Week “An excellent introduction to Italy—a sentimental Baedeker useful for traveling into the mind of a fascinating if elusive nation . . . To have re-discovered, edited, and re-proposed these authors is laudable. But Lahiri went further: she understood them. And she shares a deep appreciation for their common denominator: Italy. . . . This is the real Italy. And The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories demonstrates this better than any travel guide does.” — Beppe Severgnini, Air Mail “A remarkable introduction to Italian literature and a great gift to the English-speaking reader . . . Each story in this volume is a jewel.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review “A welcome addition to the shelf of Penguin anthologies of world literature . . . [Lahiri] features women, authors less-known or neglected, and those ‘who practiced the short form with particular vehemence and virtuosity.’ . . . The Penguin Book of Short Stories may reward the patient listener to the voices of these tellers.” — PopMatters “Jhumpa Lahiri crowns her public turn as an Italophile and translator with [ The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories ]. . . . It could hardly come at a better time, when Elena Ferrante’s novels and the American revival of Natalia Ginzburg are igniting new interest in the literary traditions of the Belpaese .” — Lit Hub “Rich . . . Eclectic . . . A feast . . . Her choice of 40 authors embraces familiar greats and sows them with fascinating additions. . . . They remind us of the short story’s playfulness, its ability to move us with unexpected sharpness while it experiments with voices, styles and boundaries.” — The Telegraph “An enticing collection . . . The tales are by turns startling, moving, intriguing and provocative; they bring melancholy, humor and a dose of the uncanny.” — The Times Literary Supplement “Refreshing and surprisingly contemporary . . . A map of Ferrante’s hinterland . . . Lahiri has pulled off something quite striking here: a literary anthology that sparkles with invention and variety, makes a remarkably convincing case for the vitality of the modern Italian short story and also beguiles, thanks to her sharp-eyed work as editor, compiler and part-translator. . . . There’s a gamut of register—comedy, fantasy, satire, psychological and social realism and more. . . . There are plenty of big hitters—Lampedusa, Svevo, Sciascia, Gadda, Calvino—though they are often represented with nicely unpredictable stories. . . . And there are captivating juxtapositions. . . . Throughout, Lahiri displays deft literary and linguistic touches. She is clearly enjoying this. She provides elegant one-page bios for all forty writers. . . . She writes with compelling force of the dense pluralism of voice in Italian language and literature. Crucially, she also makes a point of championing the extraordinary depth and quality of women’s voices.” — Literary Review “This volume, which honors so many writer-translators, is as much a tribute to the Italian short story as it is a validation of the need—aesthetic, political, ethical—for translation itself. . . . Only works in translation can broaden the literary horizon, open doors, break down the wall.” — Jhumpa Lahiri, from the Introduction About the Author Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of five works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies , The Namesake , Unaccustomed Earth , Whereabouts , and The Lowland , which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and the National Book Award. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia for In Other Words , her memoir about learning Italian. She is the author of the essay collection Translating Myself and Others and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her translation from the Italian of Domenico Starnone's novel Trick. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Contents Introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri A Note on the Citation of Titles and Their Translations • “ Names and Tears” by Elio Vittorini • “Picturesque Lives” by Giovanni Verga • “The Siren” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa • “Against Time” by Antonio Tabucchi • “Generous Wine” by Italo Svevo • “The Long Voyage” by Leonardo Sciasci • “Bago” by Alberto Savinio • “The Hen” by Umberto Saba • “The Lady” by Lalla Romano • “The Tower” by Fabrizia Ramondino • “The Trap” by Luigi Pirandello • “Wedding Trip” by Cesare Pavese • “Melancholy” by Goffredo Parise • “Silence” by Aldo Palazzeschi • “A Pair of Eye/glasses” by Anna Maria Ortese • “The Other Side of the Moon” by Alberto Moravia • “The Ambitious Ones” by Elsa Morante • “Sixteen, Twenty-one, Twenty-eight and Thirty-seven” from Centuria by Giorgio Manganelli • “Quaestio de Centauris” by Primo Levi • “Gogol’s Wife” by Tommaso Landolfi • “My Husband” by Natalia Ginzburg • “The Mother” by Carlo Emilio Gadda • “A Martian in Rome” by Ennio Flaiano • “The Smell of Death” by Beppe Fenoglio • “Life as a Couple” by Luce D’Eramo • “The Milliner” by Antonio Delfini • “The Hind” by Grazia Deledda • “Invitation to Dinner” by Alba de Céspedes • “Elegy for Signora Nodier” by Silvio D’Arzo • “Malpasso” by Fausta Cialente • “At the Station” by Carlo Cassola • “The Golden Nut” by Cristina Campo • “Dialogue with a Tortoise” by Italo Calvino • “And Yet They Are Knocking at Your Door” by Dino Buzzati • “The Miraculous Beach, or, Prize for Modesty” by Massimo Bontempelli • “A Geographical Error” by Romano Bilenchi • “The Streetwalker” by Luciano Bianciardi • “Miss” by Anna Banti • “The Baboon” by Giovanni Arpino • “Barefoot” by Corrado Alvaro Notes Chronology Further Reading Acknowledgments About the Translators Read more