Tag Archives: Europa Editions
“Literature is the Sudden Disintegration of the Verbal Fabric of Everyday Life”: Domenico Starnone in Conversation with Enrica Maria Ferrara and Stiliana Milkova
I love the idea that the city we have left behind enshrines the ghost of the person we could have become, for better or worse, had we stayed there. And I am very fond of the idea that the ghost, which we consider part of us and therefore a friend, may turn out to be frightening or hostile.
The Three Lives of Domenico Starnone
Here I am, you may object, waxing lyrical about an author we publish at Europa Editions. Hypocrite éditeur! However, I write, I swear, not only, and not primarily, as Domenico Starnone’s American publisher, rather as a long-time and ardent admirer of his work. My admiration began with Denti—it was love at first bite.
A Close Encounter with Domenico Starnone
By Andrew Martino Beneath the shadow of the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House on Boston’s Beacon Hill, the Boston Athenaeum sits quietly on a shaded street. To the casual passerby, the building sticks out for its striking architecture in a city increasingly dominated by steel and glass. Inside, some of the most profound […]
On Bonds and Baggage: Domenico Starnone’s “Ties”
Starnone captures and dissects a vast array of concerns in a slim volume, neatly structured and tightly plotted, yet at the same time open-ended, without definitive answers or solutions. “Ties,” in other words, packs a lot of baggage into a small container while also leaving the container ajar, like Pandora’s box.
Degrees of Separation: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Translation of Domenico Starnone’s “Trust”
Starnone’s “Trust” often relies on intertextuality, implicitly suggesting that readers tap into their inner literary database as they navigate this text. The novel, like all forms of literature, does not and cannot exist in a vacuum, devoid of symbiotic interaction with the universal œuvre.
A Neapolitan Grandfather on the Edge: Domenico Starnone’s “Trick”
While the protagonist’s relationship with his beloved, unfaithful wife (and his erotic liaison with Mena) remain on the background, along with Saverio’s jealousy towards Betta, the foreground is taken by the scurvy grandfather and his know-it-all four-year-old grandson.
Mary Magdalene and the Revolutionary Power of Women’s History: Adriana Valerio’s “Mary Magdalene: Women, the Church and the Great Deception,” translated from Italian by Wendy Wheatley
Engaging in dialogue with an Italian feminist tradition that seeks to retrieve the voices and experiences of our female ancestors, Valerio is unwavering in her commitment to unearthing a “female genealogy” which will liberate women from the male-authored tradition that has misrepresented us for millennia.
Reading Elena Ferrante in Bulgaria(n)
By Stiliana Milkova Last year I read Elena Ferrante’s new novel The Lying Life of Adults (La vita bugiarda degli adulti) in Bulgarian, in Ivo Yonkov’s translation from Italian. It was September 2020, it had just been released by Ferrante’s Bulgarian publisher, Colibri, and I was in Bulgaria myself. I went to Helikon, the largest […]
Translation is a Performance of Language: An Interview with Translator and Poet Will Schutt
I’m not sure there’s an Italian word for microaggression. If there is, it is probably lifted from americano.
The Truth that Lies Behind the Lies
Elena Ferrante’s new novel, The Lying Life of Adults, is intense and bitter.
The Lying Life of Narrators
It seems hardly coincidental that Ferrante, whose own “true” identity has been the object of intense scrutiny and speculation, chooses to underscore the act of crafting a fiction about oneself.
Innocence Redeemed
By Richard Carvalho The Lying Lives of Adults starts with a misunderstanding: Giovanna, the protagonist, is 12. She is well into puberty, having been menstruating for a year. Her breasts seem to her over-large encumbrances inviting men’s unwelcome interest, and her burgeoning body is a profound source of shame. She hears her father say, prompted […]
The Gospel According to Elena Ferrante
As she probes the association of God with forces of repression and domination, Giovanna condemns the patriarchal nature of her relationship with Andrea.
Alone With Language
By David Kurnick You could tell it like a fairy tale: a malevolent father who curses his daughter with ugliness; a comely prince who, some difficult years later, lifts the curse by praising the girl’s beauty. An enchanted bracelet, invested with mysterious power by the father’s hated and feared sister, who practices the “terrible arts” […]
Under His Watchful Eye: Family and Power in “The Lying Life of Adults”
The Lying Life of Adults is about the often-subtle ways men wield their power over women.