6 New Italian Written Books in English Translation
Are you looking for your next page turner? Get lost in the enthralling stories of these Italian novels that have recently been translated into English. America Domani has compiled a shortlist of newly translated Italian stories you won’t be able to put down.
Written by Daniele Mencarelli
Translated by Wendy Wheatley
Set in 1994, then twenty-year-old Daniele awakens in a hospital room to strangers. He has been sentenced to a week of psychiatric treatment, a fact that he slowly learns. Daniele begins to bond unexpectedly with his fellow patients. The novel has since been turned into an Italian-language Netflix show. Author Daniel Mencarelli was born in Rome and regularly contributes to Italian newspapers and magazines, but he sees himself as a poet. He's also the winner of the 2020 Youth Strega Prize for his second novel, Everything Calls for Salvation. Translator Wendy Wheatley was originally born in Connecticut but now lives in Milan.
Written by Maurizio de Giovanni
Translated by Antony Shugaar
In this tenth mystery novel featuring Comissario Ricciardi, the city of Naples is set to celebrate the New Year when a famous actor is killed on the stage of a popular variety show. A prop gun is loaded not with blanks, but with actual bullets killing Michelangelo Gelmi, the famous actor and star of the show. Conspiracies begin to fly. Gelmi was growing older and his career had begun to slow. A rumor begins to circulate that his much younger wife, also an actor and with a career on the upswing, had fallen in love with a different man. The novels are set in Fascist-era Italy with the first in the series beginning in 1931.
The earlier books have been adapted into an Italian language television series, Inspector Ricciardi, beginning in 2021 and is currently ongoing. Author Maurizio de Giovanni was born in Naples, but his writing career took off when he won an emerging writers story contest in 2005. He's also since written for theater and screenplays. The novel is translated by Antony Shugaar, winner of a 2019 National Endowment of the Arts translation grant.
Written by Lorenza Pieri
Translated by Peter DiGiovanni, Donatella Melucci, William Greer , Jenna Menta , Christopher Paniagua, and Kira Ross
Set in the Tuscan island of Giglio, the novel is a family drama centered around two sisters and the history of iItaly. While the tiny island has just a thousand people living on it, the strong-willed family has an outsized presence, while the daughters at the center of the story learn how isolated they really are. Lorenza Pieri is a journalist who grew up in Tuscany, as well as Paris, Turin, and Rome. She has been a finalist for the Strega Prize, and now lives in Milan. Her previous novel, The Garden of Monsters, is set on a Tuscan ranch, and was her first book to be translated into English.
Written by Venus Khoury-Ghata
Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan
Although a French novel, this newly translated novel is set in the Italian town of Malaterra in Abruzzo. Following the death of her husband, Laura arrives in the town in the rural Italian region. He had been studying a community of Albanians in an Italian town. Laura is seen as an outsider when she arrives, but eventually, she finds companionship with the odd cast of characters in the remote Italian mountains, including Yussuf, a postman who continues making his daily rounds even when there is no mail to carry.
The book offers a unique, outsider look into rural Italian village life from the perspective of an outsider. Venus Khoury-Ghata is a Lebanese-born author based in Paris. His extensive writing career spans the 1960s through today.
Written by Mario Fortunato
Translated by Julia Macgibbon
Valentino leaves his small town in the 1970s hoping for opportunity. After leaving, he is overcome by regret and struggles to rebuild his life. The novel plays out across the region of southern Italy known as Magna Graecia, a region the ancient Greeks ruled before the rise of the Roman empire. South explores the lives of other characters in the small town, Italian bureaucracy, and social class. Mario Fortunato was born in Cirò, Calabria, Italy. He grew up in a middle-class family, and has some Jewish ancestry as well.
Written by Domenico Starnone
Translated by Oonagh Stransky
Railway clerk Federí is convinced of his own artistic talent and blames the family he must feed as the main obstacle to his artistic success. Years later, his first-born will tell the story of the family identifying the truth from fiction. Set in Naples, the story is deeply rooted in the city's history and customs. The book won the 2001 Strega Prize, Italy's top honor. Domenico Starnone is a writer with almost two dozen books and a journalist. He is originally from Saviano outside of Naples. Speculators had at one time suggested that Starnone was the elusive Elena Ferrante, but now believe Anita Raja, his wife and a literary translator may actually be Ferrante, or perhaps, a collaboration between the two.
Ian MacAllen
Ian MacAllen is America Domani's Senior Correspondent and the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American. He is a writer, editor, and graphic designer living in Brooklyn. Connect with him at IanMacAllen.com or on Twitter @IanMacAllen.