The 20th anniversary of my blog!

Two decades ago, I sought a method to log the ways Italy had seduced me, and the activities I pursued so that the language of Dante would remain impressed in my mind. And that's how this blog was born. Early posts were about Italian meals Mike had made, rides in the Alfa and wines we bought.

It has evolved over time to become a public diary of my thoughts, my achievements, my passions (often involving Italy or Italian, but not always) and my commitment to fluency in the form of blogposts in Italian, among other activities (movie reviews of Italian films and course endless ruminating about books, too!). Oh and a few mentions of the book-length translation I finally managed to publish (Did I mention it's called This Darkness Will Never End?!).

I'm going to commemorate the 20th anniversary with a series of posts. This is the first. And here I'm going to very simply revisit a few of the posts that have resonated the most with readers. I'd be thrilled if you read some of the posts, and I hope perhaps the blog inspires you to return to your own passions and hobbies with renewed vigor.

Posts I liked:

"Tiny Moments of Exquisite Beauty," or the travelogue from my 2025 visit to Italy: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2025/08/tiny-moments-of-exquisite-beauty-in.html

*Praise for the film that convinced me to study Italian and changed my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-oscar-winning-film-seen-on-whim.html

Posts readers liked:

*About my fears of how the pandemic could permanently re-shape my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2021/05/what-ive-feared-about-post-pandemic-life.html

*On the reasons I need to hoard (or, my letter to Marie Kondo): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/12/dear-marie-kondo.html

*On the reference to Angelina Jolie in Roberto Saviano's book, Gomorra (note, it's in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2008/06/gomorra-angelina-jolie.html

Posts about travel and the glorious Italian language:

*The time Leo learned how to curse in Italian: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/italian-lessons.html

*What can you do with a mere 24 hours in Rome? Oh quite a bit

*When I want what I should not want (in Italy): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-boarding-doors-are-closing-jeanne.html

*How can Milan be this beautiful? https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-archive-italian-diary-may-2017.html

Posts about Leo:

The joys of running -- even just short distances -- with Leo: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/03/running-very-little-very-often.html

Leonardo from Atlanta (not Vinci): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-little-artist-whose-mother-is.html

A Day in the Life of this American Man at Age 10 (Esquire article re-enactment): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-day-in-life-of-this-american-man-at.html

Posts about books:

My all-time favorite books, essays and short stories: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/07/literature-ive-loved-after-nyt-list.html

A book list for those looking to read the work of women Holocaust survivors: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/01/women-holocaust-survivors-reading-list.html

My book log for the year I read Le otto montagne by Paolo Cognetti and many other outstanding works: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/12/what-i-read-in-2022-what-i-plan-to-read.html

Women authors have often been overlooked in Italy (in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/06/dove-sono-finite-le-scrittrici-italiane.html

*

Thanks as always for reading my blog. 

The best gift anyone can give me is to care about Leo in some way. 

But the second best? Read my work.

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Giardino Bardini in Florence is delightful

You can thank my friend, Laurie, that this photo I took in one of the most beautiful places in Florence has finally made it onto the blog.

It's the Giardino Bardini on the other side of the Arno, a garden that's connected to the Boboli Gardens but which just might be superior (especially if you enjoy terraced gardens).

(Oh and it's a terraced garden that overlooks the city of Florence. Not too shabby!)

I visited it for the first time during a vacation long after I'd left Florence. In fact, I'm not sure it was open to the public when I was an ex-pat.

Everyone is going to Italy, it would seem, and friends and family are asking for recommendations. In the process of assembling ideas to share, I've discovered that many of the places I love most are not represented on the blog. I think it's because I treat the blog in somewhat the same way I treat stories I'm editing: they should be well-written and complete. (Although, yes, there are blogposts, especially from the early years, that were written off the cuff and don't hold up too well).

But I digress. The Bardini Gardens: yet another treasure on the Oltrarno side of Florence. Palazzo Pitti, Forte Belvedere, Santo Spirito, the Boboli Gardens, Piazzale Michelangelo and this terraced marvel. When I lived in Florence, I would often take walks through the Oltrarno, in part because I lived for about a year in an apartment on Via dei Serragli, one of the main roads in that part of the city.

When you venture over to that part of the city, you are physically close to the chaos of the centro storico but spiritually very far. And these gardens are packed with tiny little paths that are so gorgeous, you may feel a heart attack of happiness coming on. How could a place so beautiful exist outside of heaven? (Simple: it's Italy.)

There's a nice gift shop here, too. I don't recall touring the actual villa on the property and I'm not sure you can. What I am sure of: this is a beautiful place to spend an afternoon.

Last but not least, I believe there is a combination ticket that gives you access to both the Boboli Gardens and this property but it would be hard to do both in one morning or afternoon (I think we spent most of our visit at Bardini and then dashed through Boboli exhausted and haphazardly). If you had the time, I suppose you could visit one in the morning, break for lunch and then return to the other in the afternoon (and if you did, I would of course recommend Trattoria Casalinga off of Piazza Santo Spirito for lunch, although there are several other old-school trattorias in the Oltrarno that would be worth your time).

So, Laurie, and other friends, please enjoy this post and hopefully you'll also enjoy this gorgeous Florentine garden!

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Edith Bruck & International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27)

Unfortunately, I won’t make it to NYC today where outside of the Italian Consulate the names of all of the Italian victims of the Nazis will be read as part of a solemn, annual ritual that I’ve attended multiple times since I began translating Edith Bruck’s work. But I’m thinking of her (and all of those who were persecuted during World War II), along with the loved ones she lost, “swallowed up,” as she wrote, during “the long dark days of annihilation.” 

If you’d like to read some of her work, below you’ll find links to some of my translations of her fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

*My translation of a speech she gave called "My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz":

https://worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/my-alma-mater-auschwitz-edith-bruck

 

*An excerpt of her second short story collection, Two Empty Rooms:

https://jewishcurrents.org/two-empty-rooms

*Translations of some of my favorite poems by Edith Bruck, including one in which she writes, "If there’s another life/I will be a yellow star/ To remind you once upon a time​/there was Auschwitz​":

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/

*Last but not least: This Darkness Will Never End, my translation of her seminal 1962 short story collection:

        Click here to buy from Amazon

        OR here to buy from Bookshop

Wait, one more thing: here’s a recording of a talk I gave about my translation, courtesy of the wonderful librarians in Northampton, Massachusetts (it includes a lot of biographical information and anecdotes from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

I’ll close with one of my favorite lines from Edith’s work:

Sometimes it takes so little

Almost nothing

A simple gesture

A glance;

As when in the Lager

They allowed you a potato

A turnip

A tattered glove

Life is beautiful in those moments

And human beings so very kind

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To the ends of the word...: The Bishop's Bedroom by Piero Chiara

I am not the only one who enjoyed The Bishop's Bedroom! Happy to share this link to a review of the work by Piero Chiara, which was translated magnificently by Jill Foulston.

Here's the link to the blogpost with the review on a blog called To the Ends of the Word:

To the ends of the word...: The Bishop's Bedroom by Piero Chiara: The Bishop's Bedroom by Piero Chiara Translated by Jill Foulston

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For CNN Travel: why can't America have more piazzas?

Piazza Navona. Piazza Santo Spirito. Campo dei Fiori. Piazza Duomo (Milan). Just some of the piazzas I love. 

And since I now work as a contract editor for CNN Travel, I recently published an article about how much Americans have come to love public squares in Europe -- in increasing numbers, too -- only to return home disappointed that most of our towns and cities don't have these wonderful outdoor communal living rooms.

My photo editor at CNN found a gorgeous photo of the epic piazza in Lucca that has the distinction of being one of the only fully-enclosed piazzas in Italy (fully-walled, in other words; you enter through arches/porticos, not a road) (click on the link for the story to see it). I'm using here a photo of Piazza San Carlo in Torino, which is also dazzling. I took it several years ago on a whirlwind, solo trip to Italy on the occasion of the Salone del Libro -- Italy's largest book fair.

You can read the story here:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/19/travel/europe-public-squares-american-development

Other CNN bylines:

You can also read an article I wrote for CNN Travel about the many Canadian travelers who are no longer visiting the US here.

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My favorite photo of Florence?

I took this photo one morning over the summer as I walked the streets of "my city." Firenze. Florence. The City of Dante. Also: The city of Jeanne. I'd finally made it across the river to revisit my old neighborhood and check on Piazza Santo Spirito, my old stomping grounds.

The morning that I took this photo, I'd stopped at Caffe Ricchi by Santo Spirito for a cappuccino and as I wrote in an earlier post about the trip, when I asked the barman there about a sign listing soy milk cappuccino, he said it tastes like cardboard. Old-school Italy remaining old-school Italy -- yay. The piazza was largely empty, I guess because it was all of 7:30 a.m. but how delightful.

On the way home to our apartment, I passed a throwback record store and peering into the window, I saw a Beatles album whose cover read in Italian, "Aiuto." Aiuto = Help. That's the famous “Help” album – translated for the Italian edition. LOVE IT!

Anyway, this might be my favorite photo of Florence from this trip. It remains such a beautiful city -- especially if you're able to step away from the areas that are heavily populated with tourists.

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'The age I lost everyone and everything' (my lecture at Otterbein)

UPDATED -- SEE VIDEO LINK BELOW Thanks to the amazing English department at Otterbein University in Ohio, I'll be giving a talk about my translation on Thursday.

The title of the talk -- "'The Age I Had Been When I Lost Everyone and Everything': The Life and Works of Edith Bruck" -- is inspired by a line from one of the stories in my translation, This Darkness Will Never End.

I'll also have the distinct privilege of sitting in on a Holocaust literature course that includes the translation as a required text!

Pinch me, pinch me -- the students will be discussing stories with me that I translated!

I plan to discuss what women writers can tell us about the Holocaust, and also various aspects of Edith Bruck's life, including outtakes from our conversation in July when I visited her again at her apartment in Rome.

What a partnership literary translation can be. I feel as though I am one of many 'emissaries' promoting the work of Edith Bruck. There are emissaries in France, emissaries in Spain, even emissaries in Germany. And I'm one of her American emissaries.

UPDATE: I gave a version of this talk at the Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, and thanks to the wonderful librarians there, you can see a recording of it at this link:

https://youtu.be/nUyf5AhRkB0?si=JiBsNG0YrF4_I0Bw

Thanks again to Otterbein!

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Tiny moments of exquisite beauty in Italy

The apartment in Florence where we stayed this month during our trip to Italy had a top-floor terrace that stares directly at the Torre di Arnolfo, which defines the Palazzo Vecchio and is arguably the symbol of Florence. In the early morning hours as Leo and Mike (and the rest of the city) slept, I had my coffee while staring back at it. One morning, the silence surrounding me was so profound that the flapping of a bird's wing overhead was singularly audible. 

(Fun fact: the apartment is on the top floor -- 75 steps up!)

Each trip contains certain touchstones -- I revisit my old apartments, I retrace my steps along treasured walking routes, I prowl beloved bookstores and newsstands for all of the written material that I feel as though I need to live. I observe the small moments of exquisite beauty, something I believe my mother would have done (a habit she almost certainly instilled in me by modeling it).  

But each trip is also different, and engenders a specific set of preoccupations. 

At one point during our travels, I developed an obsession with the Roma-Viterbo train line, which is separate from Trenitalia. It's not entirely odd: our apartment in Rome overlooked one of the stations on the line. And when I am in Italy, I am immersed in "my beat," which I define as the ordinary aspects of Italian life, the parts of Italian life that an average Italian contends with. 

It reminded me of the PATH trains that link lower Manhattan to New Jersey inasmuch as it's both local and separate. They are like an alt subway line, which is slightly odd. If you were a traveler to NYC, you could mistake them for the actual subway system, no?  

When I poked my head inside the station I could see from the window, it was as old-school as it comes. The tracks were visible from the entranceway (the long train tunnel simply deadends into the lobby of the station) and on them sat old tram-like trains. There was a bustling coffee bar attached, of course, and I had my breakfast there one day, knowing that while it appeared scruffy, the volume of customers and the people who frequented it (real Italians) guaranteed a fine cappuccino and a light, fluffy ciambellina. Yet still, I am both irked by this random, standalone train line and also by my obsession with it!

More from the Rome Journal: You can buy calendars where each month is a photo of a young Italian priest. Yes, I, too, am wondering how on Earth I left Rome without one of those calendars! I mean, dai, per l'amor di Dio ... you cannot top that. I tried to explain it to Leo by saying it was driven by the dearth of vocations and that the notion of a slew of new young priests would give older Catholics such joy....

There’s an article in the current L’Espresso that is so funny: Italian politicians who years after they’ve left office continue to enjoy la scorta (police escort/secret service-level protection), which is to say they still jump the line (in traffic, at the airport, etc) when it’s convenient. The article cites a two-century-old line of poetry:

Io so’ io

E voi non siete un cazzo

Not a poem I've ever read. (From Wikipedia: La celebre frase che il Marchese rivolge a un gruppo di popolani («Mi dispiace, ma io so' io e voi non siete un cazzo!») è ripresa dal sonetto Li soprani der Monno vecchio di Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, che comincia così: «C'era una vorta un Re cche ddar palazzo / mannò ffora a li popoli st'editto: / "Io sò io, e vvoi nun zete un cazzo"».)

ENGLISH SUMMARY: The gist of the line of poetry, spoken by a nobleman to commoners, is roughly: I'm important (or I'm someone) and you're a nobody (said more colorfully in the Italian: 'You're not jack squat,' or, 'You're a fuckin' nobody.')

I was walking through Piazza della Signoria one evening only to find a concert in the loggia behind the Uffizi – a gorgeous soprano and a small ensemble. Leo didn’t want to linger but luckily the singer’s voice lingered, following me out of the piazza (I walked extra slow).

New 'addresses' emerge on each trip, often connected with coffee bars or bakeries that serve good ciambelle/ciambelline (who would care? Yes, yes I know. There's a reason few people read this blog!). I stopped at Caffe Le Logge by the post office one morning for a cappuccino. I was out on my morning walk and needed to refuel before venturing across the river. When I returned later to buy some pastries (which were quite good), the barman said, "Ri-buongiorno." I believe that's the first time I've ever had someone say that to me. Good morning -- again. (Not that you would care if you weren't obsessed with Italian and why should you be?!)

And while we're on the topic ... The trip was especially fruitful in one delicious way: I ate some of the best ciambelle I've ever had (none would qualify as a ciambellina, where -ina indicates little). Soft, doughy, enormous, and of course covered in sugar.

Mariateresa Di Lascia is on my mind with Strega season underway!

The Italian literary sphere is in the throes of choosing the best book of the year and that has me thinking of an unusual author (and parliamentarian!) who won the Strega award exactly 30 years ago: Mariateresa Di Lascia. 

The work -- Passaggio in ombra (Italian), "Into the Shadows" (English manuscript) -- presents something that I think is unusual: the perspective of a woman coming undone, told from the woman's point of view. Not a male narrator or author presenting this. 

Di Lascia regrettably died in 1994 after writing a few short stories and completing a lone novel -- this one.

I encountered her work when I was commissioned to write an article for the Literary Hub site about Italian novels that hadn't been translated into English yet -- but should be. 

The novel is a coming-of-age work that is one of many books to light the way for Elena Ferrante (both authors featuring women narrators bucking convention). As I've written before, Di Lascia’s novel analyzes and exalts the interior lives of a group of women buffeted by their limited choices, their unruly desire for freedom and the price they pay for these desires.

I love that the book features an unconventional female narrator. She's not perfect, she's not a devil, she's somewhere in between.

I won a grant from PEN America to jumpstart my translation work on the manuscript but it has yet to find a publisher. 

You can read an excerpt of my translation here.

A line that I love but which isn't in this excerpt is about the narrator's father:

"When he thought about how his life would turn out, what form it would take if indeed it would ever bend itself to a specific shape, he felt something inside of him rebel. As if it would be an unbearable imposition. In those days, he had one lone desire: to preserve for as long as he could -- maybe even forever -- the freedom to have no direction of any kind."

One of the aspects of the work that's so compelling is the array of portraits of women. It's something I wrote about for Ploughshares when I was in the thick of translating the first section of the novel.

https://pshares.org/blog/the-lives-of-women/

It gives us the story not only of the narrator but of the women in her life -- her mother, her aunt, her grandmother -- who navigated a rural, post-war Southern Italian society not ready for gender equity. Di Lascia zeroed in on the mother-daughter relationship, but also tells the tale of a beloved aunt forced to give up a child for adoption -- a decision she never fully accepts. Indeed, one of the most poignant and harrowing moments of the book comes when her aunt reunites with her child; initially, the reader thinks it might be a clandestine meeting with a lover, so intense are the aunt's emotions and so furtive her movements as she plans a reunion others would prefer to suppress.

For Italian literature buffs, the book has the uncanny privilege of mirroring Menzogna e sortilegio by Elsa Morante. Essentially, Di Lascia structured her book so it opens in the exact same way as Morante's masterpiece. 

There's also a volatile father-daughter relationship; indeed Di Lascia didn't stint on men -- they are just as interesting as the female characters. Nuanced, too, even if they are guilty of tormenting the women in their lives. 

I don't know how other translators choose projects but I find certain lines haunt me, and if the haunting doesn't let up, I need to do something about it. Here is one such line, a sentence that frames the beginning of the book, as the narrator begins to tell the tale of her life: 

(Italian): "In questa storia, che mi fu solo raccontata, cerco l'inizio di ogni inganno."

(English): “In this story, which was only told to me, I seek the genesis of all the deception.”

I put her work aside because I received an NEA translation grant to translate stories by Edith Bruck. And now that This Darkness Will Never End has been published, I plan to return to the Di Lascia manuscript and I hope to publish it. 

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My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz

During events to present my translation, I decided to read a speech by Edith Bruck that I translated for World Literature Today.

It's called "My Alma Mater is Auschwitz."

And I think it was one of the most effective aspects of the book talks because now people are asking for the link.

Why not? When I first read it three or four years ago, I knew I had to translate it. Edith was deported at age 12 -- childhood effectively over. And then once liberated from the camps, she wandered Europe as a refugee. Her alma mater? Her alma mater is Auschwitz. 

In this speech, which Edith gave to university students in Rome on the occasion of receiving an honorary doctorate, she speaks about the woman "who learns to make herself invisible in order to gain another day of life." She writes about learning that she will never be like her persecutors.

"I, who graduated with honors from the University of Evil, I learned about goodness. From the cesspit, I extracted gold." 

What gold, you might ask? The golden joy of feeling grateful for even the smallest acts of kindness.

Here's the link again:

https://worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/my-alma-mater-auschwitz-edith-bruck 

Thanks for the kind interest!

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Come to a reading of 'This Darkness Will Never End'!

(UPDATED) As the official publication date (Apr. 22) of my translation approaches, I bring news of several readings I'll be doing in the Northeast, starting this month. 

I'd also like to share information about buying This Darkness Will Never End if your TBR pile can stand another title! (Links to the usual purchase points are below).

And now that my translation is published, I'm looking to see if there are literary (or history) podcasts that will host me. 

Do you have a podcast? I'm a chatster so the podcast will literally conduct itself.  

(It goes without saying if you have a radio show that covers the arts or books, I'd love to be a guest! I don't mean to single out podcasts -- I'd love to talk about this book wherever there are people who want to know about it).

First, the readings (click on link for details, if available):

Thu., April 24 – I AM Books (Italian bookstore) (Boston) -- DONE!

Mon., May 5 – Philadelphia City Institute Library  -- NEXT!

Wed., May 7 -- RJ Julia (Middletown, Conn.)

Sun., May 18 – Newtonville Books (Boston)

 

Wed., May 21 – West Hartford Public Library 

 

Tues., May 27 – Montclair Public Library (NJ)

Wed., May 28 -- Italian Cultural Institute (NYC)

I've begun to assemble notes for the introduction I'll give at each reading, and in some ways it's hard to know where to begin. What do I want to say about Edith Bruck, the author? And what's the most important aspect of the story of this translation?

Is it that this work captures the thoughts and fictionalized experiences of a Holocaust survivor, namely Edith?

Is it the notion that treasures remain buried in the untranslated book pile?

Is it the fact that the title story almost certainly inspired Roberto Benigni's 1997, Oscar-winning film, "Life Is Beautiful"?

Or do I say something about A.I.? I am embarrassed to say I find literary translation very hard! The work required to complete this book-length translation was monumental -- translating, re-translating, revising, proofing, having someone else look over what I'd done, revising again.

I've neglected to say anything about the plots of the stories, which include a young Jewish girl who's rescued by a boy whose father is a Nazi, and a young woman who's forced to live with a distant aunt after World War II swallows up her family, and she finds solace in French poetry.

So much I'd like to say. As I mentioned above, maybe someone could invite me on a podcast!

HOW TO BUY

The book will be officially published on April 22 but you can order it directly from the publisher and it will be shipped to you immediately:

https://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/this-darkness-will-never-end

Or you can buy it from Bookshop:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/this-darkness-will-never-end/21622230

Amazon has it, too.

https://www.amazon.com/This-Darkness-Will-Never-End/dp/1589882016

Thanks to everyone who has bought the book or cheered me on! You have contributed to bringing the stories of Edith Bruck to a wider audience.

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All I Want for Christmas is Guglielmo Coffee

Even at my advanced age, I find a lot of gifts under the tree. But the one I want most is a mega shipment of Guglielmo coffee!

The American distributor for the brand is based in Massachusetts, and every year, Il Nostro Inviato (the original 'friend of the blog') orders it to be shipped to our home (now in Connecticut, but before in Atlanta). 

One sip and I might as well be in Southern Italy.

Yes, yes Lavazza is Italian coffee, and I drink it. But brands like Guglielmo and Caffe Kimbo offer a very intense coffee experience! You are left in no doubt that you've had -- and almost certainly savored -- a cup of Joe (or Giuseppe, as the case may be).

The brand also has a very cool motto: Il caffe che fa centro. The coffee that hits the spot!

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Everything you want to know about Italian lit

I took part in a blog project called Italian Lit Month that's coincided with the big, annual book fair in Frankfurt, where Italy is the guest of honor this year.

I wrote about my passion, which is studying the work of women writers recounting their experiences of survival during the Holocaust.

Other translators wrote about the works they've translated and translation book prizes and translating dialects and Italian poetry and amazing Italian novels you may have missed.

If you've ever wanted to know about Italian literature or Italian-English translation, this month of blogposts is a crash course.

We're nearing the end of it but the month of posts will be available for anyone who wants to catch up. You can also follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #ItalianLitMonth or #ItLit.

So let's get started!

https://glli-us.org/2024/10/01/italianlitmonth-n-1-italian-lit-month-a-chorus-of-voices/

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Jeanne reads poems by Edith Bruck in translation

These are poems from Versi Vissuti, which combines three of Edith's poetry collections. I read them for the translation reading series, Translators Aloud, which is a YouTube channel that bills itself The Voice of Translated Literature.

Enjoy!

An Oscar-winning film, seen on a whim, changed my life

I don’t pay much attention to the Oscars ceremony, which will air on Sunday. Most years, I don’t see a single movie that’s been nominated. “Barbie?” Haven’t seen it. “Oppenheimer”? Nope. I’m a middle-aged mother with an 11-year-old son so I see few movies expressly for adults.

But once upon a time, an Oscar nod was reason enough for me to go to the movies. Ten days before leaving for college at Wesleyan University, I saw what's now considered a modern Italian classic: “Cinema Paradiso.” It won the 1989 Oscar for best foreign film -- and it changed my life.

The main character is a famous movie director named Totò who revisits the tiny Sicilian town where he grew up in the years following World War II. The film begins in the present day, in an apartment in Rome, but an unexpected phone call sends the director back to Sicily – and the movie back in time.

In the director’s boyhood village, life revolves around the parish church and the lone movie theater. That’s where the whole town convenes in the years before television. Alfredo, the projectionist, is seen repeatedly shooing away Totò – back when he’s an adorable but incorrigible boy who is infatuated with movies and always grabbing strips of film that fall on the floor. Alfredo eventually relents and agrees to teach him his profession. In the course of the film, Totò transforms from a tiny tot who uses a stepstool to reach the projector into a teen using his first movie camera to capture frames of a pretty girl he likes.

Before I saw the film, I knew no Italian, and had no plans to study the language. But when I arrived at college a short while later, I enrolled in Italian 101 and signed up for a hybrid literature program that included a semester abroad – all because I fell in love with the sounds I’d heard in the film. Eighteen months later, I left to study in Italy, and after college, I went back to live in Tuscany as an ex-pat. Since returning to the States, I’ve written this blog as an ode to small Italian pleasures. The film is one of many reasons a part of me will forever remain in Italy.

The movie does what all good fiction does: it makes you wish you lived in the world evoked by the story, in this case, Italian small-town life. I felt as though I had gone on vacation, to another country and another time. 

It also reminds me of the necessity of pursuing something that’s not inherently useful or handy. Knowing Italian won’t really get you out of a jam. Even traveling the world, you’ll find Italian will help you in only a handful of places outside of one solitary country (Italy). But studying Italian has been the great passion of my life; it’s allowed me to step inside the mind of another culture and revel in small moments, such as eavesdropping on a conversation between a barista and a regular at café in Rome or dining in a remote countryside restaurant where not a single other person speaks my native language. Fluency, after all, is a form of immersion not unlike diving into a pool.

I saw the film at a now-defunct arthouse cinema in Manhattan. Last year, I watched it with my students at a small college in Hartford where I was teaching Italian. I sat in the back of our darkened classroom, and took notes, my eyes brimming with tears of nostalgia. In one scene, Totò is at home in his kitchen pretending to be a cowboy, mimicking shoot-outs from westerns he’s watched at the theater. A lighthearted moment fraught with the knowledge that his father went off to war and never returns. In the space created by that absence, Totò’s friendship with Alfredo, who is childless, looms far larger than the token love story in the movie. 

Beyond recounting how a boy grows up to be a director, the film is about how longing and loss shape our lives, as well as the power of community. Totò leaves his provincial hometown on Alfredo’s advice, without ever looking back, and becomes successful in the big city. But the cost to both men is considerable. On his return, he sees what’s happened to the village – and his one-time mentor, Alfredo – since then. As the director revisits landmarks of his youth, he realizes he’s abandoned the people who loved him the most.

Watching the film at 18, I absorbed a culture completely foreign to my suburban New York upbringing. It drove me to master Italian so I could understand bits of dialogue that escaped me on the first viewing and it introduced me to what would become my adopted country. Since then, its language and customs have infiltrated every corner of my life. That 11-year-old son I mentioned? His name is Leonardo, and one afternoon in Italy not too long ago, a Florentine friend of mine insisted on teaching him to curse in Italian. I am raising him in a house where Italian words cover every surface, from book covers to the posters on the living room wall, and packages of breakfast biscotti in the pantry. 

So go to the movies. See a film you know nothing about. It might change your life. And one day, when he’s a little older, I’ll watch “Cinema Paradiso” with Leonardo – in the hopes that he, too, falls in love. With the movie, or movie-making, or even Italian. As long as he knows the beauty of falling in love with something powerful enough to change your life.

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Happy heavenly birthday, Mariateresa Di Lascia!

Today is the birthday of Italian author and parliamentarian Mariateresa Di Lascia -- she would have been 69. She died in 1994 after writing a few short stories and completing a lone novel.

I encountered her work when I was commissioned to write an article for the Literary Hub site about Italian novels that hadn't been translated into English yet -- but should be. 

The novel, Passaggio in Ombra (my English title: "Into the Shadows") is a coming-of-age work that is one of many books to light the way for Elena Ferrante (both authors featuring women narrators bucking convention). As I've written before, Di Lascia’s novel analyzes and exalts the interior lives of a group of women buffeted by their limited choices, their unruly desire for freedom and the price they pay for these desires (something anyone suffering from #Ferrantefever would understand).

I won a $5,000 grant from PEN America to jumpstart my translation work on the manuscript. Unfortunately it has yet to find a publisher. You can read an excerpt of my translation here.

One of the lines I love best isn't in this excerpt and is about the narrator's father:

"When he thought about how his life would turn out, what form it would take if indeed it would ever bend itself to a specific shape, he felt something inside of him rebel. As if it would be an unbearable imposition. In those days, he had one lone desire: to preserve for as long as he could -- maybe even forever -- the freedom to have no direction of any kind."

I've had to put her work aside because I have an NEA translation grant to work on selected short stories by Edith Bruck. But one day, I will return to the Di Lascia manuscript one day and I hope to publish it. 

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What I read in 2023 & what I plan to read in 2024

(UPDATED) I had a special mission this year to immerse myself in Holocaust narrative so I could find a publisher for the short stories I am translating, thanks to an NEA literature grant. Of course, I've been reading Holocaust narrative from the moment I began translating Bruck's work. Well, actually, before that, really, because as soon as I read Primo Levi's first book (If This Is A Man), I understood that this was seminal information -- and I read it in college.

(The collection of short stories by Edith Bruck that I translated has been published: This Darkness Will Never End -- please check it out here or here!)

But I think in 2023, this particular strand of my reading life came into focus: I will never know enough about the Holocaust or World War II, and so I am going to keep studying it until the end of time.

What's stunning: the horror never receded. What Holocaust victims and survivors endured is unthinkable. No passage of time can diminish the pure horror of what they experienced. And it's remarkable -- though that word fails -- how varied survivors' experiences are -- in other words, how many horrific ways Nazis and others found to torment these poor people. So I keep reading (especially accounts by or about women survivors).

I wasn't especially productive, if my aim was to read a lot of books in full. Instead, I read parts of many books. But as I said, the reading I did about World War II and the Holocaust was seminal.

And so I will begin with books in that category:

Holocaust narrative or fiction based on the Holocaust

*L'esile filo della memoria, Lidia Beccaria Rolfi (This book begins a few days before the writer was liberated from the concentration camp called Ravensbruck, which is fascinating because it deals with the saga of afterward. As if the saga of before -- the camps -- weren't enough.)

*Cinque Storie Ferraresi by Giorgio Bassani

*Here in Our Auschwitz, Tadeusz Borowski 

*A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink (a collection of stories that includes "The Key Game" -- devastating)

*Return to Latvia, Marina Jarre (for a review)

*I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One to Say Sorry To, Mikolaj Grynberg

*Women in the Holocaust, edited by Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman (I read this book as part of research for an article I published in the American Scholar about women Holocaust survivors)

Auschwitz and After by Charlotte Delbo (French resistance fighter)

The Parnas by Silvano Arieti

Art from the Ashes (anthology)

Against Forgetting (anthology)

I read other books, of course, though I don't think I broke any records for number of titles consumed. Here's a sampling of what I read: 

Children's books

I have fallen into a habit of auditioning a new genre each year. Last year, it was graphic novels (I also read one this year: Moi aussi je voulais l'emporter; it's by an author I discovered in Montreal). This year: children's books. Specifically by Kate DiCamillo:

*Because of Winn-Dixie

*The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

I guess you could say I've been reading children's books since 2012 when Leo was born, but these two books I read on my own -- Leo didn't have any interest. And they were beautiful. If you are trying to keep some awful tragedy at bay, and not succumb to tears, don't read them. Otherwise, proceed.

(Note, I read these books thanks to an essay by Ann Patchett on the joys of reading DiCamillo's books, regardless of your age)

Department of re-reading

La strada che va in città, Natalia Ginzburg (I could re-read Ginzburg until the end of my days)

Voci della sera, Natalia Ginzburg

Come una rana d'inverno, Daniela Padoan (interviews with three women who survived the Holocaust)

Books I perused (do they count?!)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -- IN ITALIAN! (From Rizzoli and technically belonging to Leo)

The Pentagon Papers (because Daniel Ellsberg died this year)

L’Art Presque perdu de ne rien faire, Dany Laferrière (as Montreal trip prep)

The bible in Italian (I've never read it in Italian, now have I? So I bought a copy last year)

Books that fell into my lap -- serendipity

Still Life (Fiction) (thanks to my cousin-in-law Stephanie)

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything By David Bellos

Nonfiction

The Years, Annie Ernaux (The final line is a stunner: "Save something from the time where we will never be again." It captivated me so much I memorized the French version as well: "Sauver quelque chose du temps où l'on ne sera plus jamais.")

Strangers To Ourselves, Rachel Aviv

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (in connection with West Hartford Reads, a library initiative)

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (in connection with West Hartford Reads, a library initiative)

The Faith of a Writer by Joyce Carol Oates

Other notables

The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, Maurice Carlos Ruffin (Fiction/Short Stories)

Paris Stories, Mavis Gallant (Fiction/Short Stories)

Reporting Live, Lesley Stahl (memoir)

Scene of the Crime, Patrick Modiano (“…another memory from that time emerged into the light, like strange flowers floating to the surface of stagnant waters.” I wrote a review of it for a small literary magazine, which you can read by clicking on the title.)

What I plan to read in 2024

Another book by Annie Ernaux (Using this guide from the Nobel Prize folks to help me out: https://www.nobelprize.org/what-to-read-books-by-annie-ernaux/)

Whatever Patrick Modiano writes (in translation)

Something/anything by Montreal-born graphic novelist Julie Delporte

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey (but I said this last year as well so we'll see)

L'Agnese va a morire

At the Mind's Limits

A Farm Life: Observations from Fields and Forests by my friend Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

Leftover from last year:

*The Letters of Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante (Quando verrai saro’ quasi felice)

*Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed

*The Friends of Eddie Coyle

What will you read? What do you think I should read? What did you read this year? Leave comments here or in the post on Facebook. You can see the genres I read -- Italian fiction and nonfiction, memoir, Holocaust narrative, et al -- so please make some suggestions! Or something from a completely different genre. 

Happy reading! And Happy New Year! And happy reading in the new year.

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How Italy Ruined My Life (sort of -- for The Millions)

The way Italian plunges me into an intoxication of sound and thought is something I've wanted to write about for a long time.

The way the Italian language is like a person in my life, "a twin who accompanies me everywhere -- for better or for worse," the way knowing a foreign tongue "confers a special passport" or how my attempts to convince Florentines I had mastered their language -- la lingua di Dante -- devolved into nothing short of high school hazing ... yes I've wanted to explore this topic for so long.

And now I have! Thanks to my editor, Sophia, at The Millions.

You can read the essay here:

https://themillions.com/2023/11/the-quiet-exhilaration-of-reading-in-italian.html

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Guide for your trip to Florence -- buonviaggio!

When my aunt and uncle embarked on a trip to Florence last year (after an absence of 40 years!), I realized I have slightly skimped on travel tips here on Ciambellina or in some cases not organized the posts with tips well so I am going to try to unite everything here in one post. Everything you -- my friend, my Ciambellina reader, my cousin, my uncle -- need to know in order to have a special trip to Florence, Italy (where I still live in my heart). You can thank Aunt Maureen and Uncle Pat!

Before I get to specific tips and itineraries, let me mount my linguistic soap box: learn some Italian before you go. 

Not to be nice or cosmopolitan, and not to improve the American image abroad (magari!). 

But rather because: speaking Italian with an Italian is one of life's special pleasures.

The other major bits of advice:

*Walk as much as possible

*Visit the main produce markets

*Have a ciambella (and bring a few back for me).

OK, sermon over.

Where to go

Assuming you will tick off the major sites listed in your guide book or online (the Duomo, the Uffizi, l'Accademia, San Marco, Cappella Brancacci, etc.), I will move onto advice about other attractions in Florence.

One of the main recommendations I want to make is: Visit the Villa and Giardino Bardini. Most people visit Boboli Gardens, which is quite lovely but I think the Bardini is even better. The gardens are gorgeous [terraced in some parts] and the views stunning. When I was in Florence last summer, our ticket somehow got us entry to both, though I don't know how you would visit both in one day and see everything. 

(Note, they are both on the other side of the river).

Also on the other side of the river: Forte Belvedere and Piazzale Michelangelo. I recommend walking to both, but have your walking shoes handy. Both sights are gorgeous, with views equally as gorgeous. There's likely some important historical note someone else could tell you about.

There are also specific corners of the city that I love. I'll start with piazzas: 

Piazzas I love (to walk through, to stroll through, to gaze at, to sit in)

Piazza Santo Spirito (there's often a market on in this square)

Piazza del Carmine

Piazza dei Ciompi

Piazza della Repubblica (now with a carousel)

Piazza della Signoria

Quirky neighborhoods

Piazza Torquato Tasso: Real people live in this neighborhood! Locals gather to play soccer in the park at the center of the piazza and you could go over to Al Tranvai if you wanted authentic but decidedly unfussy Florentine food.

Piazza Santo Spirito: Still where you might find artisan workshops, real Florentines and flourishes of the everyday dolce vita, though to be honest, overtourism is swallowing up these things, even here.

Santa Croce (or one quirky aspect of the neighborhood): the area across from the piazza and the church was originally settled by Etruscans and it's one of the few places in the city where roads curve. There are some tiny, hidden piazzas and viuzze here that are fun to discover.

Speaking of which...

Where to eat

I mentioned Trattoria Cammillo (Borgo San Iacopo, #57R) in a previous post about restaurants in Florence because it's a place that I like (and Beyonce also liked it!).

Cibreo is also good -- there are actually multiple Cibreo storefronts in the same basic area, depending on your budget (Via Andrea del Verrocchio #8R). Here are some other recommendations:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2015/05/where-to-eat-in-florence-update.html

Note, a lot of the places I like are on the other side of the river and two are in Piazza Santo Spirito: Trattoria Casalinga and Borgo Antico. The piazza is also quite lovely (see above) and the church was my father's favorite (designed by Brunelleschi).

I also love Ristorante Caffe Italiano on my old street, Via della Vigna Vecchia.

Where to eat and shop for dinner

I really like going to the public produce markets in Florence and the two main ones in centro are the Mercato di San Lorenzo (by the station; it is the best-known) and the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio; this last one is where I did my shopping when I was an ex-pat. It is east of Santa Croce -- and has fantastic cheese, sliced meats, veggies, etc. 

The San Lorenzo produce market -- the main market -- is now a wonderful place to dine and shop. You have to wade through the outdoor flea market surrounding the market to reach it but it's worth it.

Not just where to eat but what

People rave about pasta but here's a secret: Italian sandwiches are divine. Note: in the Old Country, they are nothing like a sub or a hero. Freshly made and reflective of all the Italian culinary acumen we've come to expect in pasta dishes, the Italian sandwich you can buy at a bar is something not to miss. Antico Noe is one of the best places for sandwiches, and not only because it is literally tucked inside a medieval arch a half-mile from Piazza Santa Croce (with a view of a medieval tower I once lived atop, but that's neither here nor there).

Other highlights:

Crostini -- as an appetizer. In the event these are new to you: little toasted slices of bread with toppings, including chicken pate, freshly-chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.

Prosciutto crudo -- I believe it's part of Italy's culinary patrimony and I am not joking. Salty, silky, delicious. I don't care if you're a vegetarian -- my Italian friends certainly didn't when I pretended to be one in college and they kept urging me to eat prosciutto! (Ma dai!)

Cinghiale -- Wild boar. It's used often as the main ingredient of an amazing pasta dish that I suggest you order: pappardelle al cinghiale. It's available everywhere!

Porcini mushrooms -- if they are in season

Fiori di zucca (zucchini flowers) -- fried or stuff

Italian pastries -- Forget gelato. The real treats in Italy are pastries. Look for bars that say 'produzione propria' (that means they make their own pastries) or head to a pasticceria.

(Also grab a chocolate bar at the supermercato/alimentari if it has whole nocciole in it -- the big nut at the center of the baci candies. Why have one nocciola when you can have an entire chocolate bar full of them?)

Where to walk...

In addition to "everywhere," I also recommend walking to the other side of the river -- often. From there, as I've mentioned, you can walk to Forte Belvedere, Piazzale Michelangelo and the Bardini gardens.

Indeed some of the nicest walks are in the area around San Niccolò (the other side of the river) because they allow you to get outside the walls of the city and go up into the hills. One place you could try walking to is Forte Belvedere.

Where to have a coffee and step onto a page of A Room With A View:

There are old-school caffes that make your morning coffee feel royal and four of them are on Piazza della Repubblica, of which Caffe Gilli is probably the best (coffee/pastries/aperitivo etc); also the Rivoire on Piazza della Signoria will make you feel as though you're a wealthy landowner.

Where to drink wine

Everywhere! That's one of the things that makes Italian coffee bars special -- you can order a caffe latte in the morning and un bicchiere di vino rosso in the evening!

But I will give one recommendation of a place to drink: Rose's on Via del Parione; it's on one of the more beautiful streets in the center city. Drink outside at one of the tiny tables where you can watch fancy Florentines walk and bike by.

Look for a place called 'enoteca' to sample some good wine. I also love the hole-in-the wall (literally) kiosks where you stand on the street at a counter and order a glass of wine and maybe a sandwich.

Pastries

You'll find an entry for gelato below but as I mentioned, I think paste or pasticcini [pastries] are the unsung sweets of Italian cities (unsung, I should say, by Americans. Italians know). And really, by now, you should know my favorite: la ciambella or ciambellina (looks like a donut if a donut was baked in God's kitchen). Also good: un bombolone (similar but without the hole and typically filled with crema). 

Gelato

Vivoli (Via Isola delle Stinche) around the corner from our old apartment is very popular and also very good but so is Festival del Gelato right off of Piazza della Repubblica (down the block from the Duomo). Also good (and popular): Gelateria Carraia and Gelateria Santa Trinita (both are stationed on the other side of two consecutive bridges across the River, Oltrarno side).

Souvenirs

I still buy souvenirs and so should you! I favor paper goods because reading in Italian is my passion (and paper was an ancient Florentine art) so my suitcase is always loaded down with novels and magazines but the category also includes notepads, calendars and the like, which would appeal to anyone.

I find some of the best souvenirs can be had at the big bookstore on Piazza della Repubblica: Libreria Feltrinelli (there are also lots of kiosks right in front of the bookstore that may have something you like). In addition, I highly recommending visiting the Bialetti store for the classic Italian Moka coffee pot (and coffee cups and other accessories).

Lastly, I know some of you out there are real foodies so I recommend checking out a website published by a local Florentine food writer who knows her stuff (and has Catholic interests -- hugely into sushi, etc.):

https://www.ioamofirenze.it/

She recently published a guide on her blog to choosing a restaurant in Florence:

https://www.ioamofirenze.it/mi-consigli-un-ristorante/

Note, it's in Italian but all the addresses you see everywhere (on maps, for hotels, etc) are in Italian anyway and the names of restaurants are in Italian on the sides of buildings so if you really want to go somewhere, you'll figure it out. I suggest choosing something from her guide under the category 'Trattorie tipiche' ('local, traditional eateries'), with the name of the restaurant in bold at the start of each entry (then Google the name of the restaurant and figure out where it is). She also has a heading for fine dining (in English) and if you have the euros, go for it!

Buonviaggio!

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