When Elsa Morante published La Storia. Romanzo in 1974 it was a watershed event that invested Italian society both in terms of the unprecedented success among readers and the ideologically fueled controversy among critics. Echoes of this reached the US. Paul Hoffman, writing from Rome for the New York Times, reported: “For the first time since anyone can remember, people in railroads compartments and espresso bars discuss a book—the Morante novel— rather than the soccer championship or the latest scandal.
A Chemist’s Book Changed John Barnett’s Life.
Chemist and writer Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table—a memoir in the form of short stories about elements—closes with a chapter…
Angelo Fortunato Formiggini: An Italian Publisher
Eliza Pederzoli’s biography L’arte di farsi conoscere. Formiggini e la diffusione del libro e della cultura italiana nel mondo (Roma,…
Slavery and Conversion in Papal Rome
Scholar of forced baptisms Marina Caffiero talks about the House of Catechumens and the various groups that were forcibly or…
Marina Jarre’s Distant Fathers
Rewarding memoirs, like portraits, introduce us to a central character interacting with his or her world at a specific time…
