Death in Sardinia
Page 47
27 – Carlino is referring to the famous ‘amnesty’ granted in June 1946 by popular communist leader and anti-Fascist Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964) to those guilty of political and common crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder. Togliatti was Minister of ‘Grazia e Giustizia’ (‘Pardons and Justice’) in the post-war government.
28 – A famous Italian cyclist.
29 – Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas/New Year’s holiday season in Italy and, in imitation of the Gospel Epiphany, involves another round of gift-giving, including the children’s custom of hanging stockings to be filled by la Befana, the ‘good witch’, who goes around rewarding good children with sweets and presents and ‘punishing’ the naughty with lumps of ‘coal’, normally a sugary black sweet made to look like coal. The witch’s name Befana is actually a simple linguistic corruption of the Italian Epifania.
30 – Carosello was a half-hour-long programme of adverts, comic skits and cartoons that used to follow the evening news on national television.
31 – Fegatelli are chicken livers.
32 – An immensely popular Italian weekly periodical of puzzles such as rebuses, acrostics, crossword puzzles, riddles, etc. Created in 1932, it is also published in a number of other European countries.
33 – A powder which, when added to water or other liquids, makes them fizzy.
34 – In proper French, Pâté de foie gras, vols-au-vent de fruits de mer, soupe à l’oignon, dinde aux marrons.
35 – Charlotte au chocolat.
36 – Repubblichini are those Italians, in this case soldiers, who worked for the Republic of Salò, the pro-Nazi puppet government set up by the Germans in the northern Italian town of Salò not long after the armistice of 3 September 1943, which followed the fall of Mussolini’s original Fascist regime.
37 – In Italian, a botta is a blow or an explosion.
38 – A Sardinian lemon biscuit.
39 – Emilio de Bono (1866–1944), an important Italian general in the First World War and later a member of the Fascist Grand Council, among other things.
40 – An Italian comic-book character created in 1938 by Vincenzo Baggioli and Carlo Cossio, Dick Fulmine is an Italian-American plainclothes police detective from Chicago.
41 – A soft drink flavoured with the bitter orange variety called chinotto in Italy.
42 – Primo Carnera (1906–1967), a famous Italian boxer who was world heavyweight champion in 1933/34 and known for his tremendous size.
43 – The SIFAR (Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate) was a military intelligence agency that was formed after the war and folded into the SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare) in 1965, in particular the subdivision called the SID (Servizio Informazioni Difesa).
44 – A ‘naval’ form of the expression in bocca al lupo (‘into the wolf‘s mouth’), used to wish someone good luck without jinxing them by saying so (like the English‘break a leg’).
45 – The parascholastic and paramilitary Fascist Youth organisation founded by the party in 1926.
46 – A Sardinian greeting that means ‘Greetings and plenty [trigu means‘grain’], and up the devil’s arse [literally ‘the enemy’]’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Vichi was born in Florence in 1957. The author of twelve novels and two collections of short stories, he has also edited crime anthologies, written screenplays, music lyrics and for radio, written for Italian newspapers and magazines, and collaborated on and directed various projects for humanitarian causes.
There are five novels and two short stories featuring Inspector Bordelli. The fourth novel, Death in Florence (Morte a Firenze), won the Scerbanenco, Rieti, Camaiore and Azzeccagarbugli prizes in Italy. Marco Vichi lives in the Chianti region of Tuscany.
You can find out more at www.marcovichi.it.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator. He is also the author of three books of poetry. He lives in France.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Marco Vichi
Tranlsation copyright © 2012 by Stephen Sartarelli
978-1-4804-4794-3
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