Oonagh Stransky’s translation of Domenico Starnone’s monumental novel The House on Via Gemito (Europa Editions, 2023) is a tour de force. The vast, complex narrative comes to life in Stransky’s words, enabling in English Starnone’s profound investigation of a son’s relationship with his larger-than-life, exuberant, violent, irrepressible father. Longlisted for the 2024 International Booker and shortlisted for the 2024 Oxford-Weidenfeld Prizes, Stransky’s translation deserves more attention.
In his review of The House on Via Gemito, writer and translator Tim Parks praises Stransky’s “able and fluent” translation but is soon sidetracked by discussing the mystery of Elena Ferrante’s identity (as a possible avatar for Starnone himself). Enrica Ferrara, a scholar, writer, and translator, underscores the novel’s unique characteristics, calling The House on Via Gemito Starnone’s “Ur-text, the archetypal novel containing all others.” Furthermore, Ferrara notes the linguistic register – dialect and profanities – that enlivens Starnone’s prose through the father’s lexicon. And as Italian scholar Chiara De Caprio explains, in Rebecca Falkoff’s translation, “the echo of [the father’s] dialect confers on the syntactical-textual score of the novel the rhythm of a long, draining self-narration that proceeds by wavering between recrimination and vexations, jealousy and a sudden surge of willpower, outbursts of anger and a desire for redemption.” This is the unwieldy material Stransky transforms in English with poise and patience.
Published in Italy in 2000, Via Gemito won the coveted Strega Prize in 2001, cementing Starnone’s reputation as a master storyteller. Nonetheless, it hadn’t been translated into English until Stransky undertook this challenging project, undaunted by the book’s massive length and scope. After Via Gemito, Stransky translated Starnone’s novel The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan (Europa Editions, 2024), and is currently working on Starnone’s most recent work, Il vecchio al mare (Einaudi, forthcoming from Europa).
I have long admired Oonagh Stransky’s translations – from Carlo Lucarelli’s Almost Blue (City Lights, 2001) which I have taught in my Comparative Literature courses at Oberlin College to her recent translations of Starnone. So when I finally met Oonagh in person earlier this year, I couldn’t resist asking her a few questions about her translations of Starnone’s books and more.
Stiliana Milkova Rousseva
Stiliana Milkova Rousseva: The House on Via Gemito is such a complex, winding novel that retraces a complex, fraught family history narrated through the son’s perspective. How did you approach translating the book? Did you read all of it first?
Oonagh Stransky: I don’t usually read the whole book before translating, just enough to get a good feel for where it’s going; I like to be keenly aware of the feelings I experience while I’m reading so I can carry them over into English. It’s funny you ask this question because I recently started working on translating Starnone’s newest novel, Il Vecchio al Mare, and I decided to switch things around a bit and read the book first. I’m glad I did. Working on it now, I feel less exposed to the upheavals that the narrator undergoes; it feels more manageable, like I’m working in the sunlight but with a parasol to protect me from the glare.
Going back to Via Gemito, though, while I was translating I only read a paragraph (or page, at the most) at a time, always remaining alert to the tension, humor, violence, irony, anguish, frustration, desire etc, because all those emotions play a huge part in what words I choose and how I construct the sentences. Then, going back to the text later, and editing it, I asked myself if I managed to relay those feelings of tension, humor, frustration, and so on. Did I feel a smile spread across my face as I read the funnier parts? Did I clench my teeth in anger along with the narrator?
Stiliana: What were some of the challenges in translating Via Gemito? And what were some of the rewards or satisfactions?
Oonagh: One of the most evident challenges was the sheer length of the book. It took me eight months, working seven hours a day, six days a week. It was a constant part of my life, and as a matter of fact, when I think back to certain events that happened to me during those months, they’re all framed by events in the book in a strange overlapping of reality and fiction. Funny story: I have two dogs and take them out for a walk four times a day (which is a great break from sitting down all day!). On several occasions during those eight months, I found myself talking out loud as I walked them, sounding out solutions to some of the hard parts, to hear how they sounded. My dogs often looked at me oddly!
The other main challenge was the use of dialect, but to be honest, once I decided that I could (and here I mean that I was permitted, had the right, the power to make this decision) leave some phrases and words in dialect, it got easier. Mostly, I did this with the longer epithets: they’re musical, rich in history, and they deserve to be given their space, to be held up high; translating them would have meant quashing them, deflating them. Even so, I had to find out what they meant, and this took time. I spoke with Neapolitan friends, I used a number of different dictionaries, I tried saying them out loud (which is surprisingly helpful) and I ended up learning a great deal.
Stiliana: It’s such a visual novel – the father is a painter and his painting The Drinkers is a key image in the narrative. It is also a topographic novel of sorts, set in Naples and, of course, the title itself names the narrator’s street. Did you do any research or look at images, maps, or other visuals to help you envision the setting? Do you think it’s important to visualize when you translate?
Oonagh: I think it is absolutely critical to both visualize and empathize when you translate. I always allow myself to be drawn in; not only do I see things through the characters’ perspectives but I try and make connections with my own experiences. In the case of Via Gemito, I reflected at length on intense memories of homes I’ve lived in, spaces, and rooms. My mother was a painter and some of my final memories of her, as she died when I was young, were in her studio, with all the brushes and scents of paints and thinners. In terms of the city and its streets, I’ve only been to Naples once and don’t know it well, so I pored over maps of the city, and traced the roads with my finger, following the narrator and searching with him for something concrete, some truth to grasp onto.
Stiliana: You also translated Starnone’s recent novel The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan (Europa 2024). It’s a much shorter book, though just as complex. Can you tell me more about the novel and your translation of it?
Oonagh: I’m initially tempted to say that translating The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan was more difficult than Via Gemito, but that’s probably because I completed it more recently so the challenge is still fresh in my mind. I don’t want to give away the story and spoil it for those who haven’t read it yet, so I’ll have to be a little vague on that.
In some ways, believe it or not, the language of The Girl from Milan is even more complex and experimental than Via Gemito. In fact, as opposed to the binary standard Italian vs. Neapolitan dialect of Via Gemito, here there are five linguistic layers: there’s standard Italian, Neapolitan dialect, there are hybrid conversations where there’s a little of both, there are academic texts, and even phonetic language is used. The English version has three/four layers to it, depending on how you read it:
1. I translated the narrator’s “standard” Italian into “standard” English (but there’s never anything standard about either when it comes to Starnone!);
2. I translated the greater part of the conversations that take place in Neapolitan into standard English, without creating/using cultural parallels so as not to stereotype or weaken the discourse;
3. As with Via Gemito, I chose to leave many words in Neapolitan intact, either because they deserve their place, because they add texture, history, and culture, or because they simply didn’t need translating;
4. With regards to the phrases in the original that rely on a combination of standard Italian and Neapolitan syntax/dialect, I tried to retain a hint of this hybridization but I’m not sure if it will be noticeable to the general reader;
5. In the original, single words and phrases are written out in the phonetic alphabet; I had fun experimenting with how to render these. And if it sounds heavy or academic, trust me, it is not! Starnone is not only a master of capturing fleeting thoughts and emotions, he can also be very funny!
Stiliana: Can you tell me anything about the book you are working on now by Starnone, Il Vecchio al Mare (The Old Man by the Sea, forthcoming from Europa Editions)?
Oonagh: The narrator is an 82-year-old writer who rents a house by the sea in the off-season. As soon as he arrives to the place, something mysterious and magical happens, which sets him on a reflective inner journey. At the same time, he becomes fascinated by and involved with a group of people who live locally. As you can imagine from the title, the book is filled with intertextual references; there are treasure-hunters and sea monsters; there’s cruelty, kindness, scathing self-awareness, and transformation. I love inhabiting Starnone’s books as their translator, but this alternative, creative reality makes it hard to see the big picture… What I’m trying to say is that you or a reviewer will be better prepared to draw parallels to his other works.
I’ll leave that to you, also because I’ve already moved on to my next, new project: translating some of Starnone’s early stories from the collection Fuori registro, which I hope to publish in various magazines and literary journals in the coming year.
Stiliana: What advice do you have for emerging translators in general, and emerging translators from Italian in particular?
Oonagh: Be patient. Start with short stories or standalone pieces and submit them to literary magazines. Don’t give up if you don’t get something published right away. Give yourself time to grow. Join associations (ALTA, PEN). Listen, learn, read. I have nothing special to suggest with regards to Italian in particular but I will say that I feel lucky to have moved to Italy when I did (after college for 5 years, and then after 15 years in NYC), where I did (in a somewhat remote place where not much English was spoken, something that would be hard to replicate now), and with the warm and language and literature-loving people I did.
Stiliana: Thank you, Oonagh! I can’t wait to read Starnone’s The Old Man by the Sea in your translation!