by Anna Banti
Blossom S. Kirschenbaum works in Comparative Literature at Brown University. She has published articles in Sage and MELUS and translated Giuliana Morandini’s I cristalli di Vienna as Bloodstains (St. Paul, MN: New Rivers Press, 1987) and Fables from Trastevere (1976), the verse of Trilussa. Her translation of Maria Zef has recently been published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Henry Martin has lived and worked in Italy since 1965. After receiving his B.A. from Bowdoin College and his M.A. from New York University in English literature, he taught English language and literature for several years at Università Bocconi in Milan. He works now as a freelance art critic and translator. His translation of The Iguana by Anna Maria Ortese was published in 1987 (Kingston, NY: McPherson & Company), and he was recently rewarded a National Endowment of the Arts grant to translate thirty of Ortese’s short stories. His translation of Giorgio Manganelli’s Tutti gli errori (All the Errors) will appear with McPherson & Co. early in 1990.
Barbara Dow Nucci graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in 1965 and completed her M.Ed. at Boston University in 1973. Originally from Maine, she has lived and worked in Naples, Italy, for more than twenty years. She teaches Italian and Italian contemporary society to American students. Her other interests include international education and comparative women’s studies, in addition to translating the work of Italian women writers.
Margherita Piva was born and lives in Udine where she teaches English and English literature in a scientific high school. She graduated in 1972 from Università di Udine with a thesis on “Folklore Figures in Robert Herrick’s Works,” and has continued her research of folklore in early seventeenth-century English minor poetry, including two years at Reading University. She returned to Italy to teach and continue her literary and folklore studies, with special emphasis on analogies between Italian and British Celtic folklore. Her articles include “William Browne, Marino, France, and the Third Book of Britannia’s Pastorals” in collaboration with Prof. Cedric Brown of Reading University; “Gnomi e folletti in Friuli e nelle Isole Britanniche, “Folklore e Romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and “Mannerismo e Miniatura in Nimphidia di Michael Drayton.”
William Weaver is well-known for his translations of such Italian writers as Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum) and many others. He is also the author of books about Giuseppe Verdi and Eleanora Duse. Weaver’s articles about Italy appear in The New York Times, The Financial Times and numerous other publications. He lives in the Tuscan hills near Monte San Savino.
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Glossary
Basso: in Naples, a ground-floor room of an old apartment building opening right onto the street and sometimes inhabited by an entire family.
Callas: Maria Callas.
Excelsior: A deluxe hotel and bathing beach located at Venezia Lido.
Gattó: Neapolitan potato pie.
Nannucci, Maurizio: A conceptual artist who has supposedly photographed every shade of green leaf in existence.
Neapolitan mastiff: a very large dog with great folds of excess skin and known for its intimidating appearance and pleasant disposition.
Nola’s Feastday: the annual ceremony of the Dance of the Lilies at Nola, twenty miles south of Naples. The tradition began sixteen centuries ago when the townspeople greeted the return from exile of their bishop, Paulinus, with bunches of lilies. Trade guild competition led eventually to the use of long poles to carry the lilies, then to the huge wooden steeples of today, fifty feet or higher, borne by teams of fifty men.
Nonna: Italian for grandmother, granny, grandma, nana.
Real: an old Spanish silver coin.
Scudo: a large silver coin used in Italy until the end of World War II.
Totó: Stage name of Antonio De Curtis (1898–1967), Neapolitan comic film actor most popular for his film characterization of an unsmiling but sympathetic bourgeois figure, likened by international film critics to Buster Keaton.
Verdi: A play on the word verde meaning “green” and the composer name Giuseppe Verdi.
Verdiglione: A famous Italian psychoanalyst whose name carries associations of green and is rhythmically right.
Visconti: Luchino Visconti, the film-maker.
Zia; Zio, Ziu: literally “aunt” and “uncle” but sometimes used as complimentary titles for older people.
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Credits
“The Courage of Women” from Il coraggio delle donne by Anna Banti. Milan: La Tararuga, 1983. By permission of the author’s estate.
“The Sardinian Fox,” from Romanzi e Novelle, Vol. 1, by Grazia Deledda. Ed. Emilio Cecchi. Milan: Mondadori, 1941. First translated in Modern Italian Short Stories. Edited by Mark Slonim. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954. By permission of translator.
“Carnival Time” from Maria Zef (1936) by Paola Drigo. Reprinted from Maria Zef by Paola Drigo, translated by Blossom S. Kirschenbaum, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © Garzanti Editore, 1939, 1982. Copyright © 1989 University of Nebraska Press.
“Dear Giuseppe,” excerpted from The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg. Translated by Dick Davis. By permission of Seaver Books. Translated from La Città e la Casa, Turin: Einaudi, 1985. New York: Seaver Books, 1986.
“The French Teacher” by Geda Jacolutti from Noi donne, April 1986. By permission of the author.
“Tosca’s Cats,” from Tosca dei gatti by Gina Lagorio. Milan: Garzanti, 1983. By permission of Garzanti.
“That One Dance,” from La strade di polvere by Rosetta Loy. Turin: Einaudi, 1988. By permission of Collins, U.K.
“Maria” from Mio Marito by Dacia Maraini. Milan: Bompiani, 1968. By permission of the author.
“The Kiss in the Sea,” (1955) and “My Mother Wore Pink” (1948) from Sei Storie Veneziane by Milena Milani. Florence: Editorial Sette, 1984; and “Ice Cream” by Milena Milani from Il Mattino, 21 (August 1988).
“Rita’s Trip” and “The Salt for Boiling Water” from Come I Delfini by Marina Mizzau. Verona: Essedue Edizioni, 1988. By permission of the author.
“Berlin Angel” from Angelo à Berlino by Giuliana Morandini. Milan: Bompiani, 1987. By permission of the author.
“The Mirrors” from Aracoeli by Elsa Morante, translated by William Weaver. Translation Copyright © 1984 Random House, Inc. Copyright © 1982 by Elsa Morante and Giulio Einaudi Editore S.P.A. Reprinted by Permission of Random House, Inc.
“The Benedictines,” from Una donna di Ragusa by Maria Occhipinti. Milan: Luciano Landi, 1957; Feltrinelli, 1976. By permission of the author.
“The Tree,” from I giorni del cielo by Anna Maria Ortese. Milan: Mondadori, 1958. By permission of the author.
“Perfetta’s Day” from Storie di Patio by Fabrizia Ramondino. Torino: Einaudi, 1983. By permission of Einaudi.
“The Electric Typewriter” by Francesca Sanvitale from La realtà è un dono. Milan: Mondadori, 1987.
“Pink,” “Lavender,” “Silver,” “Green,” and “White,” from Colorare by Monica Sarsini. Bologna: Exit, 1984. By permission of the author.