Meeting Donatella Di Pietrantonio at Rizzoli this year

At an event at Rizzoli in Manhattan earlier this year, I asked Donatella Di Pietrantonio to autograph one of her books that I love -- L'Arminuta (English: A Girl Returned) and when I told her I did some translation work, she gushed over the efforts and mission of literary translators (I do, too, largely because I am still trying to find my footing in this essential branch of literary philanthropy). Take a look at her message: "A Jeanne, grazie per il grande lavoro che fa." Translation: "To Jeanne, thank you for the important work that you do."

The book is a novel set in the author's native Abruzzo, and Di Pietrantonio is one of a wave of Southern Italian women authors who have emerged in the literary landscape remade by Elena Ferrante.

I reviewed the translation for the Kenyon Review and as I noted in the review, Di Pietrantonio "grapples with the holy trifecta of human emotions (and thus, fiction): love, longing and loss." It is the stunning story of an adoption undone but so much more than that. To quote the review again:

For much of this novel, published in Italy in 2017, the narrator is caught between two mothers. Di Pietrantonio often figuratively—and skillfully—sets one mother against the other: “Every Saturday the mother in the town was obliged to give me a small sum, which came by some means or other from the mother on the coast.”

No surprise, the author is a class act! How lovely it was to meet her, at a conference dedicated to Italian literature (which, hint hint, I hope Rizzoli and the Italian Cultural Institute will host again in 2026).

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