La Storia
Elsa Morante. Excerpts from La Storia, remembering October 16, 1943 Not even from her mother had she ever heard this denomination “Aryans”; in fact, the de-nomination of Jews itself, for…
-
Invited to Think
Read More -
The Printshop at Bookhouse
Read More -
La Storia
Read More -
Bruce Slovin (1935-2025)
Read More -
QUARTO STATO
Read More -
Bookhouse Musings: A Table
Read More -
Thruth and the Holocaust
Read More -
An Act of Faith
Read More -
Notes on Nurith Aviv’s Language Trilogy
Read More -
On Bruly Bouabré’s Alphabet (2005)
Read More
Features
Thruth and the Holocaust
“If you no longer want to believe the truth, nobody will want to believe you.” Zelman Lewental, prisoner of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, quoted in Franco Fortini, “I cani del Sinai”. …
Hatching the Cobra
Let no one praise Perillus, who was cruder than the tyrant Phalaris, for whom he constructed a brazen bull, promising that when a man was enclosed therein and a fire…
Latest Articles
Primo Levi: An Identikit
Over the last seventy years, Primo Levi (1919–87) has been recognized as the foremost literary witness of the extermination of the European Jews. In Primo Levi: An Identikit, a product of…
The indecipherable mess of human life
Due vite (Two Lives) by Emanuele Trevi is a luminous, beautifully written wisdom book. It was deservedly awarded the 2021 Premio Strega, Italy’s major literary prize, and awaits the foresight of…
A chemist’s book changed John Barnett’s life.
The graphic artist’s Carbon illustrates an element’s journey from a star to his brain We are delighted to repost a review of John Barnett’s beautifully conceived visual meditation on the…
Angelo Fortunato Formiggini: An Italian Publisher
Born in Modena to a family of court jewelers who had maintained their private synagogue for generations, Angelo Fortunato Formiggini (1878–1938) was a publisher first in Modena (1908–11), then in…
Slavery and Conversion in Papal Rome
A conversation with Marina Caffiero. Your best known research focuses on the history of forced baptisms of Jews during the Inquisition era and on the institution of the House of…
Paying attention to the tonality of life: 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 in history. We are drawn to a memoir when all…