I eloped "with" Italy 30 years ago

How odd to conclude that among the loves of your life is an entire country, in addition to the real loved ones, like Leo.

I am, of course, talking about Italy, a country that for me is nothing less than a shaman, no safer than those Sirens who ensnared Odysseus, and more akin to a being that enthralls (enchants/bewitches) me than a landmass. Also: a twin who lives mainly in my mind but who nonetheless follows me wherever I go.

And it's been following me for a long time: 30 years ago this year, I left America to live in Italy.

Dates. Anniversaries. Milestones. The accumulation of years. I dwell on these notions a lot. But because I've been busy promoting This Darkness Will Never End, my first book-length translation, I haven't had a chance to reflect much on the fact that three decades ago this year, I left for Italy. 

Thus began my expat life -- the years, for better or for worse, against which all the subsequent years would be judged.

Thirty years ago, I eloped to -- and with -- Italy. And 'eloped' is the right word because the transaction lacked the solid planning of a wedding. I escaped with my paramour and let all the naysayers (who wisely said, 'You don't have a job...') be damned. All I knew was that, following my graduation from Wesleyan, I'd secured through a friend a summer "job" as a tutor to a bunch of rich Romans whose children attended an American school in Rome. And then I would go on to Pisa where I would be the guest of a doctor whose cousin worked in my department at Wesleyan.

After that, who knew? Not I, but I didn't care. I only knew one thing: my days of living in one language were over. Once I'd tasted bilingual life, it was the only one for me. As I mentioned in a previous post, once you've heard and understood Italians speaking their native language, I don't think you can go back to the English-only world. I couldn't. 

Before the year was out, I migrated to Florence, a city I'd circled warily. It's hard to believe this, but I was on Team Siena back then. I'd spent a semester in Siena as a student and found Florence dirty and chaotic whenever I visited.

But one Sunday, the doctor who was hosting me in Pisa had to work all day at her hospital in Florence and she invited me to come along. The city enchanted me! Perhaps because she dropped me off somewhere other than the dodgy train station or due to the quiet hum of a weekend but I can remember crossing one of the bridges that span the Arno and succumbing to the magic of Florence.

Lasciate ogne speranza: for me, at that point, I could abandon all "speranza" -- hope -- of ever falling out of love with Florence or Italy. Like the author of those famous words, I would spend the rest of my life thinking about enchanting, beguiling, occasionally wicked Florence.

As I've said before, if my life were a novel, I might call my departure for Italy the “inciting incident.” It followed that semester abroad where I'd resolved to truly immerse myself in the culture, and being fluent in Italian became an obsession—a lonely one, since I often forced myself to forfeit outings with other Americans so I could instead practice Italian. 

What's ironic: I’d struggled to learn the language in my freshman year of college, but once in Italy, nothing short of fluency would satisfy me. In an essay I wrote for The Millions, I noted that one of the first words I learned on the ground in Italy was the verb scherzare. "It means 'to joke' and is indispensable for following almost any conversation with Italians. During a trip I took to Sicily, a Palermo policeman warned me about strange men near the station by yanking on the skin below his eye with his finger, and uttering a single word, occhio, which simply means 'eye.' I was hooked," I wrote. Mastering Italian became a pursuit not unlike bedding men or getting drunk.

I had very little money when I lived in Italy, and no real career to speak of. In fact, when I returned to the States, I was at loose ends (since I hadn't been building a professional foundation, or so I thought). I can recall visiting the beach with my sister, who uttered an immortal line about my lack of a real job when I lived in Italy, which caused a bit of a stir between us at the time.

She wasn't wrong. But she may not have realized what Dad had intuited. Knowing not only that he was a world traveler but also that his library included books by many authors who made the most of their ex-pat years, I believe my father sent me off to Italy so that I could truly live, so that I could collect the kinds of experiences that fiction and other writing spring from.

Of course him being him (a contrarian), he had an unforgettable comment when I decided to return home from Italy: "It's all downhill from here." I was 25!

It took me many years to get over leaving Italy. Perhaps because I moved from a medieval tower in the center of Florence to an apartment in a car-infested Atlanta suburb. I can recall crying in the car in Atlanta whenever we listened to Italian music (and forget watching Italian movies -- total sob fest).

Eventually I forced myself to develop interests in other countries, such as Mexico, which we visited quite a few times. I even allowed myself to study Spanish, although it felt as though I were betraying my true love, Italian.

And then when I'd finally moved on, I allowed myself after many years to return to Italy, only to discover that I still wanted what I shouldn't want: to live in two places and two languages, which is to say, live in Italy and the US. The compromise? I live in two languages by translating Italian literature.

The experience of living in Italy was so rich, it's as though everything that came after paled. Luckily, I became a mother and that feeling dissipated because the experience of being a mother is much more powerful than adoring a culture or way of life.

But the experience of living there continues to shape my life today (and the mementos that have proliferated throughout my house. It dominates what I read, and it spurred me to translate, and it influences where I choose to vacation (and my dreams for retirement, which I recently concluded should begin with a year's wandering through Italy).

I continue to marvel over Italians and the Italian way of life. At one point during our travels last summer, I developed an obsession with the Roma-Viterbo train line, which is separate from Trenitalia. As I wrote here, 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. I found 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?

And I continue to silently beg Italians to keep being Italian (especially as I note developments such as a Starbucks coffee location on Via del Corso in Florence. Ma dai! Non ci voleva).

So my dear Italy, I'm very happy we eloped all those years ago! I'll remain true to you until my dying day.

-30-

Why you should press 'record' on Thanksgiving (my Bos. Globe essay)

I'm reposting a version of an essay I wrote for The Boston Globe several years ago that contains some advice I still like to offer folks, especially at this time of year. It's an essay about the power of recording our loved ones' words, and the power specifically of recording my son's words and also those of my mother, in what was one of the last good recordings I made with her. 

Be fair warned, though: "Sound gets inside of you -- it inhabits you. It can break your heart."

Here's the essay:

During a weekend visit to New York last winter, I recorded my son’s impressions of the city. I began by asking where we were. I thought he would simply say “Manhattan” or “at the hotel,” but Leo, then 9, said, “We’re in a hotel in New York City, in North America, on a planet known as Earth, in a galaxy known as the Milky Way, in a universe known as the Universe.”

When I became a mother in my late 30s, I wanted to do more than take photos or videos of my son. I wanted to remember his speech development by preserving his sounds. So I recorded him.

Jay Allison, the founder of “The Moth Radio Hour,” once told me that humans relate to sound in a way that’s distinct from other media.

“Sound literally gets inside of you — it inhabits you,” Allison said. “It can break your heart. That’s different from photos, which remain on the outside.”

I recorded Leo’s snores, his gurgles, his first words. Some recordings are filled with his guffawing as he watches TV. His belly laughs are a tonic.

Recording has been a tradition in my family. My late father recorded conversations with my sisters and me on a handheld tape deck. Piling into his den, we crowded around his desk as he pressed the two large play and record buttons. Later, we would listen back to the tape with glee.

Far too late, I grasped the importance of recording my mother and father. If pure joy compelled me to record Leo, pure dread inspired me to begin recording my parents a few years ago. What would happen to their stories when they died?

Before it was too late, I needed to piece together one bit of crucial family history that had never been fully explained: What had happened when my mother’s younger brother died in a car accident at age 18?

She rarely mentioned him during my childhood, except to say that my grandparents never recovered from the loss of their oldest son, whom everyone called Spike. I only gleaned a few snippets about him during the adults’ cocktail hour at my grandparents’ house: He had an outgoing personality and was a football star.

My mother was 19 when he died. Now, in part because of my recordings, I see his death, in 1957, as an event that has hovered over her entire adult life.

Recording my mother’s words made sense for another reason: Video is for action, and her action days are behind her. At the time of my last good recording, she was 83. She sat down in her chair at the foot of the stairs, and, bathed in the glow of a floor lamp, she lit a cigarette. She was game to talk about anything but the present or recent past, which dementia had begun to scramble in her brain. More or less housebound, she spent most days chain-smoking and dozing off, unsure of the month or sometimes even the season.

Her mental fog would soon force us to move her to a nursing home, but when I asked about the circumstances of Spike’s accident, barely a second elapsed before she began reciting a chronology of events. It was as if she was supplying answers she’d had at the ready for decades.

The accident had occurred during the summer. Spike was driving a convertible. A top student, he’d been given the car as a graduation gift from my grandparents, following his acceptance at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. He’d been killed instantly when his car collided with an embankment and flipped over.

The funeral was held at his Catholic high school. “Oh God, thousands of people came,” my mother told me. “Thousands.” It doesn’t matter that she’s likely wrong about the number — it matters only that in her mind’s eye, legions of people came to pay their respects to the luminous brother she’d lost.

It wasn’t until months later, when I listened again to the recording, that I discovered a moment I had overlooked. After the funeral, my mother told me, they drove out to the cemetery, which was some distance away. At one point during the muggy hour-long drive, the road curved, and my mother turned to look behind her. And that’s when she glimpsed through the back windshield the headlights of the dozens and dozens of cars following the hearse to her brother’s final resting place.

More than anything else, that image crystallized for me the tragic loss she’d borne for 65 years.

Recording affords us the ability to save not just our parents’ voices but their stories.

“People would tell us, ‘I have a recording of my father’s voice, and it’s all I have left,’” Allison told me. “It was an actual part of the person — it contained his breath.”

In the years to come, these recordings that contain my mother’s breath will remain precious to me. And the little that I learned about Spike furnishes me with an outline of the uncle I never knew and his role in my mother’s life.

This holiday season, consider pressing “record” on your smartphone when you’re around the table. The sounds of gathering — the voices, the stories, the ambient clatter — will fill an audio time capsule you’ll cherish on some future day when you’re longing in vain to hear a loved one’s voice.

You can also read the essay (with the full image of the wonderful photo they chose) on the Globe site:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/23/opinion/why-you-should-record-your-holiday-dinner-conversations/ 

The coolest thing: praise for “The Quiet Exhilaration of Learning Italian”

An academic in Italy read the essay I wrote for The Millions about learning to speak Italian and reposted it to LinkedIn with the most amazing comments!

She actually called it "un bellissimo articolo" -- a beautiful article!

I believe this is one of the few times I've read something in Italian that's commenting on my writing (outside of graduate school!):

Chi ama parlare, ma soprattutto vivere, una lingua riconoscerà subito questa sensazione: non è (solo) comunicare, ma anche acquisire una nuova identità e scoprire un altro modo di stare al mondo.

Translation: "Anyone who loves speaking but especially living another language will immediately recognize this sensation: it's not only communicating but also acquiring a new identity and discovering another way of being in the world."

How truly wonderful this is! Thank you, Gaia. Molto gentile!

Here's Gaia's post:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7358807293552971776/

-30-

Edith Bruck is alive and well!

During our trip to Italy, I was lucky to see many friends I'd known in Florence, but perhaps the most important meeting took place near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

It's the area where Edith Bruck lives -- "my author."

Indeed, Mike even arranged for us to stay near Piazza del Popolo during our visit to Rome so I would be able to to walk to Edith's apartment.

It was our third meeting; the first took place in 2018, shortly after I began translating, "Silvia," one of the signature stories in This Darkness Will Never End.

I spent three glorious hours with Edith this trip. Imagine if your 94-year-old grandmother was a famous writer. Over lunch, she reminisced, she complained, she repeated herself, she smoked! (those thin cigarettes -- the whole time). But she also told me about a story (novel?) she wants to write – but can’t because she’s lost most of her eyesight – and I wish she could write it. It’s called “La Caccia,” and it’s about two journalists who go looking for the last sopravvissuta.

Is that how she feels – like l’ultima sopravvissuta? The last survivor of the Holocaust?

(With only 220,000 survivors left worldwide, according to the Claims Conference, she may well feel that way).

She proudly told me she has a new book coming out this Fall! "L'Amica Tedesca."

She made some very interesting comments, including, “Quando scrivo in Italiano, una parola partorisce un’altra.”  That means: When I write in Italian, one word gives birth to another. She said it to explain that she can’t write now because she can’t see. And since she can’t see, she can’t put down one word and then see where it leads. She said she’s always done her writing by using yellow legal pads propped up on her tummy.

She and Olga (longtime assistant) were very kind and they both told stories about Papa Francesco in great detail. Truly one-of-a-kind to have a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust with such close knowledge of a Catholic Pope! Beautiful friendship. They showed me a special photo book from their visit to Casa Marta, where Pope Francis had lived, that the Vatican created for her (Editor's note: Pope Francis asked to meet Edith Bruck in 2021 to thank her for bearing witness to the Holocaust and to apologize for all the pain she'd suffered).

She told me she thinks about her parents every day -- 80 years after their brutal deaths in Auschwitz (mother) and Dachau (father). She even sang a lullaby in Hungarian that her father used to sing to her!

"Finché vivo, vivono loro ... nei miei libri, nel mio cuore."

As long as I'm alive, she told me, so are they -- in my books, in my heart.

And we spoke of the survivors who rarely if ever break their silence -- like her brother, who witnessed her father's death while they were in the concentration camp and told her what happened but tearfully begged her never to ask again. So she didn't. And she wonders, she told me, what were her father's last words? Was he asking about her? She'll never know.

If your grandmother was a famous writer ... I was spellbound! What a privilege it is to translate another person's words. I sat there combining all of my own identities -- journalist, translator, writer -- and grateful to have entered into a one-of-a-kind relationship with a writer like Edith.

Some of what I blogged about is so frivolous. My memento shrines! Whether the Crazy Drycleaner is still in business (in my old Florentine neighborhood). The barista who said 'Ri-buongiorno.' But this feels momentous.

Yes, there were happy moments, and sad moments during our visit. But mainly proud moments because we were celebrating the publication of "our" new book -- the translation of her first short story collection, This Darkness Will Never End, which has been a milestone for me, and a continuation of the flow of her works into English (three of which have now been published by Paul Dry Books in Philadelphia).

May it continue! I have translated most of her second short story collection, Two Empty Rooms, and even managed to publish an excerpt with Jewish Currents magazine.

My thanks to everyone who has supported this translation! (Including the National Endowment for the Arts). I've been touched by your gestures and interest -- a British colleague of mine at CNN Travel learned about the translation while we were chatting one day over Slack and ordered it from Amazon that day!

I'll continue to talk about the book in the Fall, including a visit to Otterbein College in Ohio where I'll be the guest speaker at a class on Holocaust literature. There will be some other stops, too, which I will detail on the blog and via social media.

The written word, the spoken word, the translated word -- a passport to a world of discovery, understanding and friendship.

-30-

Memento shrine (Italy) 2025

Christmas morning for me, if somehow instead of Santa Claus coming down the chimney it was Babbo Natale.

My memento shrine, the haul from two weeks of consuming everything I love from il Bel Paese and my ode to all of the little items I stud my daily life with, in a bid to retain a bit of Italy in my otherwise suburban American life.

It may seem like an odd habit, these memento shrines, especially since I don't shop much back here at home. And what an example of conspicuous consumption! One magazine wasn't enough -- I needed three, plus the Settimana Enigmistica, my favorite puzzle  (there are competing puzzle magazines, but this is the real McCoy, to be clear -- wink wink), and several editions of the newspaper I read in Italy, Il Corriere della Sera, (the copies are buried in the photo under the striped box containing coffee cups from Bialetti, which constitute a somewhat new obsession: buying sets of coffee cups with Italian expressions on them for our morning coffee. Once upon a time, we were arranging trysts in hotel rooms in Madrid -- true story! -- now I consider it some mark of our love that every morning our coffee cups "match" because they form a set). (These cups read "Amore mio" -- my love/my beloved -- and "Sole cose belle" -- only beautiful things).

And, of course, books. As I mentioned I was able to find a book by Edith Bruck that's out of print, a Natalia Ginzburg that I needed (because I have now accepted that I will read one or more of her books every year, not unlike the ritual re-reading of A Christmas Carol) and three books from Giuntina, which has published many books by Holocaust survivors, and which I bought directly from the publisher, a lovely turn of events for many reasons (this haul includes Tagebuch by Liana Millu, the author of Smoke Over Birkenau; this latest acquisition is the notebook she kept as she journeyed home from the concentration camps at war's end).

The photo above represents not only my own consumption but also Leo's: the pricey Ferrari shirt? It ain't mine! Ditto the pale green sweater and sweatpants from Benetton (on mega sale!).

Other items of interest:

*A baby bottle of Vin santo

*Every possible permutation of Florentine paper gifts -- wrapping paper, note cards, posters, note pads

*Cans of fancy tuna in olive oil for the chef

*Biscotti for our morning coffee (a new kind! Mike is obsessed with ones that are integrali because he thinks they are healthier)

It's actually less of a haul than in previous years. When I win the lottery -- as Mike often says -- I am going to Italy and buying everything the newsstand guy (il giornalaio) sells and every book I've ever wanted at Feltrinelli and all the biscotti in the world (which is to say at the Conad supermarket) and every kind of Florentine paper, including Florentine wallpaper if that exists. And since we're talking about the lottery, an apartment in Florence.

Curious about previous memento shrines? This one is coffee-themed:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/06/italian-trip-2017-post-12-what-i-bought.html

And the more restrained Montreal edition:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2019/09/montreal-memento-shrine.html

Wow, I've been at it a while:

https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2011/04/christmas-in-april-il-nostro-inviato.html

Signed,

Your Italian memento scout

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.

Taking the pulse of Firenze -- and my own

Dante considered Florence a den of snakes, and I can see why, but he also lamented his exile from this bejeweled city and I can absolutely see why -- years into my own (voluntary?) exile from Florence.

It’s truly beguiling as cities go -- not one you can write off easily (though he and I have both tried!).

Beguiling describes its allures and also its current state, mired as it is in overtourism -- but can we blame anyone for wanting to visit this enchanting city I once called home?

(Not unlike the notion that Italy is familiar to me, I also revel in saying that Florence is a city I once called home. Maybe how native-born Manhattanites feel? Though that level of entitlement I could never approach). 

As I write, I’m sitting in a living room on Via della Vigna Vecchia – not #1 but rather #12, and outside, from a tiny terrace, there’s an up close-and-personal view of the tower in Palazzo Vecchio. At this moment, the churches are chiming out 7 o’clock and I feel compelled to go out on the terrace to hear the bells – like the world coming alive in surround sound.

We arrived on Monday, and as usual, I have professed my love for Florence -- and spent time getting reacquainted with her -- by walking her streets. That is the way for me to take the city’s pulse, and my own. Will you grow weary of reading that only when I have prowled the streets for hours each day do I feel as though I am truly visiting Florence? Speriamo no.

Denise posted on Facebook that she was at the Shore for her birthday, and I had a serious case of FOMO.

And yet, while she was at the beach, I was meeting with my one-time roommate, Irene, and her husband, and reveling in the joys of old friendships. We chose to meet up at this ridiculously cool bar by the Sant’Ambrogio market, where Mike and I found seats outside while we waited but when Irene arrived, she said, “Well, have you seen the internal courtyard?” I had not and let’s just say the nuns who once lived at the convent now converted into a bar had some nice green space (would they have enjoyed the glass of Bolgheri we had? Maybe).

Yesterday I found two books I’d been looking for at the Florence branch of Il Libraccio: Vita immaginaria by Ginzburg and Lettera da Francoforte by Edith Bruck (finally!). Who knows how many more books I’ll try to schlep home? The quantity I’d like to buy is probably a number in the low three figures.

I also shopped at my old market (in Italian, Il Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio) yesterday. Still authentic, still wonderful, still selling qualche etto di prosciutto (crudo, always crudo, for chrissakes) that I can’t resist.

State of the city: positively infested with tourists, and the main part of centro storico is now full of quickie snack stops for travelers (rather than residents), as I wrote during an earlier trip. If back then, there were 15 snack stops (panini shops, wine bars geared toward foreigners, convenience stores) in a half-mile, now there are 40. And they've displaced local shops that served residents.

State of Leonardo (as he is known here, not far from Vinci, home of the other Leonardo): Well, we saw my old friend, Chiara, last night for a walk through centro & then dinner, which was lovely until we said our goodbyes and Leo yelled at me, “Three hours of you talking in Italian!” But what was nice: I suggested we go to a bookstore (so Chiara could pick out a book for her upcoming vacation) but instead she said she wanted to find Andremo in città, (i.e., the book I translated) which they didn’t have (alas).

(Update: The state of Leonardo was quite good at the Ferrari store where we bought him a pricey shirt and also before in the mountains where he was surrounded by cats and dogs.) 

I spend my days taking an inventory of what was and what is, especially since Mike insisted we rent a place on our old street (which is also around the corner from my last apartment in Florence). My old tower of course is still there but now at the base, there’s yet another restaurant for tourists (meanwhile our bread bakery not far away is long gone; oh the focaccia you could get there!). At Vivoli, there’s a line out the door – not so surprising, as even at 8:30 a.m., gelato is yummy (apparently) – but they’ve also expanded and taken over the corner grocery Paola used to run. I guess no one needs gorgonzola anymore.

Morning coffee with biscotti: enjoyed on the tiny terrace while the Torre di Arnolfo looks on (see above). The only cool respite in a city baked by the August sun.

My church is open most days and more gorgeous than I remember (just a neighborhood church) plus the ‘Crazy Drycleaner’ (our nickname, not the name of his shop) is still there – but the macellaria (butcher) where we bought the Thanksgiving turkey one year is gone.

Italy? Still stunning

Of all the ways I've aged, perhaps the one I like best is how easily I am satisfied at times. 

I've written before in this space about the 24 hours I spent in Rome a few years back, and how utterly wonderful they were, no matter the scant time I had to enjoy the Eternal City. Now I come again to say almost any amount of time I spend in Italy is a cure for a life-threatening disease I didn't know I had.

If you read nothing else, let me also say this: We arrived in Italy a week ago and as usual it is both breathtaking and familiar! How lucky can I be that Italy feels familiar? So very lucky indeed. Also: I don't consider myself one to have a bucket list but something that could top it for me? Biking on the ancient Appian Way in Rome.

Pinch me -- maybe my bike tire rolled over a cobblestone once tread on by Julius Caesar's chariot! (Because yes, there are sections of the road with the original cobblestones). You can visit some interesting ruins and of course the catacombs.

That's one of the special things we did in Rome. We also visited (again) the Borghese Gardens and saw the Ara Pacis for the first time. Perhaps most importantly, for me, I visited with "my author" Edith Bruck and she is well (for a 94-year-old woman). I spent three glorious hours with her! She has a new book coming out in the Fall, I am pleased to say. She is not very mobile but as long as she is near a pack of cigarettes, she's OK! (She smoked those tiny thin cigarettes my entire visit).

Also, for the record: Seeing SPQR on every manhole cover in Rome is still cool! (Also cool: knowing it means senatus populusque romanus; the Roman Senate and people)

Oh and you can buy a calendar that features the faces of fresh, young priests every month of the year!

We explored Piazza del Popolo and the area around it (including Via del Corso, site of the nightly passaggiata) quite a bit since we stayed on Via Flaminia, one block outside of the piazza (thus we had to pass through a gorgeous monumental gate each day to enter Piazza del Popolo). It was ground zero for all of the young people visiting Rome last week for the Jubilee youth summit, owing to the fact that one of the churches on the piazza is a pre-requisite for all pilgrims before heading to the Vatican.

Rome was hot, somewhat crowded and still the Eternal City.

Best food so far:

Extra large, extra doughy ciambella (Rome)

Crostini with rabbit ragu

Pinsa with mozzarella di bufala and pomodorini

Fiori di zucca fritti

Verdure fritte miste

My favorite chocolate bar: dark chocolate ('fondente') with whole hazelnuts

Best walks so far

-- Cross the bridge closest to Piazza del Popolo, walk along Tevere to the bridge by Piazza Navona, stumble into the piazza where the Pantheon is located, then Via della Scrofa, which becomes Via di Ripetta until you reach Piazza del Popolo (Rome)

-- Walk along Arno in the town of Onda (mountain town outside of Florence)

I’m in the mountains now – the mountains of Italy – and need I say, it is absolutely beautiful? We visited small, run-of-the-mill towns yesterday and my heart broke from the beauty. It was the Jeanne-small-town variety of beautiful: a rocky stream with multiple small waterfalls ran through the center of town and you could walk along the stream (the towns of Londa and Stia). You could stand on a bridge and look over at the stream, and ogle the buildings that line the stream (including, in Stia, a restaurant where we ate).

At one point, we walked through the town of Stia during lunch hour, and the sound of Italian radio filtered out of a door or a window, much to my delight!

We try to do something different each trip, and this trip we have chosen to stay a few nights at an agriturismo in the mountains east of Florence. Good decision! We have visited mountain towns before but I don’t recall our ever staying overnight at a farmhouse as we are now. So imagine you’re visiting Vermont but all the signage is in Italian, the quirky tavern keeper speaks Italian, the tourists you find at the secret swimming hole are Italian (or German – but of course). Oh and it's somewhat hot.

And then there’s a certain extremity to the matter – the roads we travel to reach this farmhouse are so narrow, no American could possibly consider them fit for two-way traffic. I have visited Vermont many times and probably there are a few roads like this but are the locals going 90 mph around each turn?

While right now I am using my laptop and I have been texting with Italian friends, I am largely offline, content to read my Natalia Ginzburg book (Tutti i nostri ieri) (I've tried to read this novel before but it never appealed to me as much as her other books) and articles in the copy of L’Espresso I bought in Rome.

Right now, as I write: One of the barnyard cats is meowing outside our kitchen window. The silence is so complete, it is loud!

So far in Italy: I have walked – run – swum – biked.

What else? Leo (known as "Leonardo" here) has begun to tease me while I’m talking on the phone here to Italian friends:

I say: “Si,si.” And then he says, “Si,si.”

I say: “Certo.” And then he says, “Certo.”

My mind is not totally 'bifurcated' yet between English and Italian but getting there. 

So to sum up: Italy is still marvelous! And hearing Italian is still marvelous. Wish you were here! Especially some of you -- and you know who you are.

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A translation is born -- publication day is here!

Today is the day! My first book-length translation is officially published. This Darkness Will Never End, my translation of Edith Bruck's first short story collection, is out in the world.

And it arrives in bookstores 30 years after I first expressed a desire to translate an Italian book.

I type those words hesitantly because it surely isn't a boast. How could it have taken me three decades to reach this goal?

Well, journalism got in the way. That's one excuse. Oh and before that: Italy! I was having too much fun living in Italy as an ex-pat after college to translate an actual Italian book. (Fear and cowardice are two more excuses).

And to be honest, seven years have passed since I first read the original work, Andremo in città, and began translating one of the stories. Seven years since I felt what I describe as a lightning bolt sensation: these stories need to be available in English.

Seven years in which I began to occasionally teach at Wesleyan University (my alma mater) and penned obituaries for CNN while Leo learned to curse in Italian, finished elementary school, began middle school and decided his parents aren't all that sharp (he, however, was sharp enough one day to ask me when there would be a book whose cover read, "Translated by Jeanne Bonner." Today, my son! Because when you were born, I was reborn.)

(On a practical note, seven years slipped by during which many publishers I'd deemed suitable rejected the manuscript; how many hours I poured into reading the back catalogs of publishers and crafting proposals tailor-made for them!)

But the wait is now over -- and the apprenticeship has been served. You can buy the book on Amazon, at Bookshop or directly from the publisher.

Learning Italian has been one of the thrills of my life. It's a milestone that I connect to some of the other formative moments of my life -- including translating sections of the Aeneid in Latin class at St. Anthony's High School on Long Island.

In fact, the first words of literature that I can remember translating weren't in Italian. They were: "Arma virumque cano..." (the legendary opening words of Virgil's Aeneid. Among the flurry of tasks that I completed to introduce the translation, I sent a copy to the library at St. Anthony's.) 

As I celebrate the "book birthday" for my translation, I am preparing for a series of readings, beginning with an event at I AM Books in Boston, Beantown's Italian bookstore. And I've been heartened by all of the kind attention people have lavished on this little translation, including a very perceptive review from the Jewish Book Council.

The translation is dedicated to Edith's father because that's the epigraph she'd written for the original manuscript. But if I could write a dedication, I would mention all of the small moments that led to the publication -- reaching all the way back to the little girl in elementary school who insisted on keeping a notebook and revealed her love of writing to her teachers by scribbling a poem about Harriet Tubman on the back of an assignment. (I would also of course want to recognize the precious readers who won't be able to provide any feedback but who quite literally escorted me to this moment in my life: my parents and Liz).

As I've said before, the book I've birthed into English, like all of the short stories and poetry that I've translated and published, is not coincidentally by a woman author. Thanks to Paul Dry Books for continuing to invest in Edith Bruck, an important transnational Italian writer!

The task of revising, polishing, proofing and publishing a translated book is the proverbial labor of love. And I'm thrilled it's a translation of a book by a woman.

Translate women.

It's all I've done in the seven years that I've been translating Italian literature.

While I studied Italian in college and read Italian literature in the decades following my graduation, I only stumbled into literary translation after earning an MFA and seeing the literary field as a potential home not only for my original writing but also for translated works of literature. Specifically works written by Italian women writers that I could smuggle into English.

Literary translators are often gold prospectors. They discover treasures that for English-speaking readers remain buried in another language.

This book expands the number of works by Italian women authors in English. It adds to the collection of books by Holocaust survivors available in English. And while it's a work of fiction, it nonetheless increases our understanding of the specific hardships women who were deported by the Nazis faced.

It has been a long journey and while I have many regrets, I have embraced my penchant for being a late bloomer. Only in the past 10 years have I completed any graduate school degrees (two, in fact, two decades after leaving college); or written for The New York Times; or applied for important grants (I won a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship to translate Edith's stories).

I was even late to becoming a mother! 

If I stop to think of the time I squandered (as Philip Larkin said, "time/torn off unused"), I get discouraged – so I don’t allow myself to dwell on that. Instead, I keep busy by setting goals, and taking steps to reach them. I am proud to be a lifelong learner. I won’t ever compete in the Olympics but as I look to future achievements, I say it’s never too late (to write my own book, for example). 

Ever since Leo was born, I've viewed obstacles, achievements and hard work in a completely different way. Obstacles remain challenging for me, to be sure, but they call on me to work hard and I've now truly learned the Gospel of consistently working hard to achieve a goal.

Perhaps it's helped that I returned to the beginning -- my girlhood love of writing, of keeping notebooks. Plus, connecting deeply to someone else: the story of Edith Bruck I proudly carry into the English-speaking world, as I've carried the stories of my parents, my relatives, my friends. What's elemental remains for me enthralling -- discovery, language, connection, extrapolation, figuring something out.

In conclusion, thank you for your kind interest.

And happy book birthday to This Darkness Will Never End!

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This Darkness Will Never End -- Publication date! And pre-order link!

One day, Leo spotted a book in translation on a shelf in our house. Looking at the cover where the translator's name appeared, he said, "When will we see a book that says, 'Translated by Jeanne Bonner'?" 

Today, my son. Today! (Because when you were born, I was reborn.)

A box of copies of my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, arrived today. So it's real! I can scarcely imagine the joy you'd feel if you published a book of your own writing. I am elated to bring out the work of another writer through my translating hand but I would guess seeing your own thoughts published in a book would make you (=me) weak in the knees.

Nothing is really like birthing a baby but, wow, birthing a book is also a long, tense, task-filled process!

It's been 7 years since I first read Edith Bruck's short story collection, Andremo in città. Seven years since I felt that lightning bolt: these stories need to be available in English. And now they are.

Thanks to those of you asking about how to buy a copy of my translation.

The book will be officially published on April 22 but you can order it directly from the publisher (Paul Dry Books) 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

Give me feedback if you encounter a problem. I am not sure when Amazon or Bookshop will ship the book.

Readings

I'll be reading from the book at various libraries and bookstores in the Northeast, including:

Philadelphia City Institute Library

May 5

5:30 p.m.

Stay tuned for other readings!

I hope to reach a lot of people through events. Are you part of a group that would like to host me? Is your book club looking to read a lost Italian/Jewish classic short story collection? Let me know!

If you're interested in learning more about Edith Bruck or finding other examples of her work in English, keep reading.

I wrote an article for the journal, The American Scholar, on overlooked women writers who have borne witness to the Holocaust that features Edith:

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-writers-of-the-shoah/

I've translated some of her poems, including one that made it into The American Scholar's Read-Me-a-Poem podcast:

https://theamericanscholar.org/at-the-american-express-office-by-edith-bruck/

More poetry here, published by Asymptote Journal in 2020:

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

You can also read one of the stories from This Darkness Will Never End -- “Silvia.” It won a prize and was published in Hunger Mountain:

https://hngrmtn.org/issues/hunger-mountain-27/translation/

You can also read her other books in English: Who Loves You Like This and Lost Bread (also published by Paul Dry Books of Philadelphia) or Letter to My Mother (published by MLA Publications).

Grazie di cuore!

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The Year in Translating Women (one specific woman) -- 2024

Every year, I tally up what I've accomplished professionally -- mainly my year in writing, but also translation. Basically, what I've managed to publish.

I started blogging about this because I noticed a wildly successful writer (Alexander Chee) did so. (He's a hard act to follow!)

Looking back on this year, I find there's not much published writing to consider! Not much writing, period -- but a lot of translation. 

This was the year I completed my first book-length translation manuscript. (See cover mockup at left).

And like all of the short stories and poetry that I've translated and published, the book is by a woman author. Thanks to Paul Dry Books for continuing to invest in Edith Bruck, an important transnational Italian writer!

I did publish a little writing this year -- including a Tiny Love Story in The New York Times! -- and an essay about the Brat Pack documentary for CNN. 

But mainly, I plugged away at the monumental task of revising, polishing, proofing and publishing a translated book.  And I'm thrilled it's a translation of a book by a woman.

Translate women.

It's all I've done in the seven years that I've been translating Italian literature.

It’s not surprising that I would come to think of this as my mantra, my purpose. Women's achievements inspire me. They make me feel as though I have vicariously achieved something, so I've enjoyed discovering emerging Italian women writers and also overlooked authors.

(It’s also easier for me to confine my translation projects to women authors: I don’t work full-time as a literary translator.) 

I stumbled into the field after earning an MFA and seeing the literary world as a potential home not only for my original writing but also for translated works of literature. Specifically works written by Italian women writers that I could smuggle into English.

Women and men, of course, share many of the same concerns, emotions and hardships, all of which can fuel the best writing.

But because the circumstances of their lives have often been different – a focus on caregiving for women, fewer work opportunities historically, mortality related to bearing children -- the experiences they've drawn from are often fundamentally different. In the case of the Holocaust narrative I’m now consumed by, women who were deported to Nazi concentration camps had to contend with the same inhumane conditions as the men -- meager rations, freezing temperatures, disease, evil guards -- but also fear of sexual predation, clandestine pregnancies and decisions regarding separation from their children that frequently hinged on the mother or the child headed for certain death.

There are many others focused on promoting translated works by women, including the Women In Translation initiative, which sponsors Women in Translation month every August.

But we still have a long way to go.

The first book I began translating seriously was Passaggio in ombra by Mariateresa Di Lascia. I learned about it while writing an article for Lit Hub about overlooked works by Italian women writers. The book won the highest literary award Italy confers -- the Strega -- but has somehow not been published in English.

(My translation manuscript, "Into the Shadows," isn’t finished but I plan to return to the project in 2025, after shepherding This Darkness Will Never End into print; I won a PEN grant for the manuscript-in-progress and I remain grateful for it!).

That project gave me my mission: paying special attention to works by women overlooked by the literary world.

So now I translate women, I review literature by women writers and I look for any opportunity to spotlight books written by women. And I will continue to champion the work of women!

Here’s some of the work I’ve done so far to advance this mission:

*An article for the journal, American Scholar, on overlooked women writers who survived the Holocaust: 

"The Forgotten Writers of the Shoah" 

*An essay for Ploughshares about the ways Mariateresa Di Lascia's work anticipated the #MeToo movement:

“The Lives of Women”

*Translations of Edith Bruck's poetry, including one poem that made it into The American Scholar's Read-Me-a-Poem podcast:

https://theamericanscholar.org/at-the-american-express-office-by-edith-bruck/

(More poetry translations published last month by The Common at Amherst College here)

*Translation of a short story by Edith Bruck that will appear in This Darkness Will Never End (and which won the Hunger Mountain Translation Prize)

https://hngrmtn.org/issues/hunger-mountain-27/translation/

*A review of a book by an important Italian woman author (A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio) for the Kenyon Review:

https://kenyonreview.org/reviews/a-girl-returned-by-donatella-di-pietrantonio-738439/

*Translation of a short story by F. Marzia Esposito (published in Asterix, which is edited by the wonderful Angie Cruz):

“Autumn Lessons”

Here's to women and the unique stories they have to tell in all the languages of the world!

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Il paese dei miei antenati

Vado pazza per le parole, sia in inglese che in italiano. E una volta un mio amico fiorentino mi mandò una cartolina dall'Irlanda, e ci scrisse:

"Il paese dei tuoi antenati è la fine del mondo."

Mi è rimasto impresso questo suo commento perché mi sembrava cosi gentile -- certamente mi aveva ascoltato con grande pazienza mentre gli parlavo diverse volte, come americana, del paese di mio bisnonno -- ed anche perché Irlanda è davvero spettacolare. 

Quando ci sono tornata a giugno, spesso mi dicevo, "Il paese dei tuoi antenati è la fine del mondo."

Le parole: a volte possono avere un peso sacro anche quando si tratta di frasi che non hanno niente a che fare con Dio. Hanno una dimensione religiosa nascosta, direi.

Grazie, Floriano! (la cartolina ce l'ho ancora).

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Literature I've Loved (after the NYT list)

I began compiling this list because whenever I teach, I'm always scouting out works I can include on the syllabus and I'm slated to teach a course this Fall. But I decided to complete it after the fanfare that resulted from The New York Times' list. Note, I don't make temporal distinctions. These are the works from all time that move me, which I suppose might be off-topic since the newspaper was specifically aiming to capture the best books of this century. I am not convinced -- or maybe I'm simply unsure -- the best books  I've read were published during the current century. I also approach my reading life in a way that's quite separate from the publishing industry's calendar. I have recommendations from friends, I have genres I follow (memoir, literature by Italian women authors), I have gaps to fill (Shakespeare! Toni Morrison!), and none of that necessarily coincides with the particular books that come out each year (the most notable often go on the TBRL file, no?). 

To be sure, many of these works I've read and/or re-read this century. But does that matter? Let's put the issue aside and move onto the actual list, which isn't exhaustive, more like 'some ideas' for what to read. A list like this could really go on and on but I'm going to call time right now. And I've probably missed all kinds of books that I loved. Oh well!

Fiction

The Dubliners, James Joyce

Drown, Junot Diaz (which I preferred to 'Oscar Wao,' which made the Times' list)

The Divine Comedy, Dante (definitely not this century, ha ha!)

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

This Darkness Will Never End, by Edith Bruck (note, my translation) UPDATE!!!!

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston

Il Giorno della Civetta, Leonardo Sciascia

To Each His Own (A Ciascuno Il Suo), Leonardo Sciascia

Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini)

Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones (His book, "The Known World," is on the NYT list but I haven't read it yet!) (almost this century!)

Country Girls, Edna O'Brien (May she rest in peace!)

A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr 

A Meal in Winter, Hubert Mingarelli

Gli Indifferenti, Alberto Moravia

The Bishop's Bedroom, Piero Chiara (in a stellar translation by Jill Foulston)

Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill

So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Patrick Modiano (actually this century)

Suspended Sentences (ibid)

A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink (see below)

Charming Billy, Alice McDermott

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver 

Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (this century)

If You Kept A Record of Sins, Andrea Bajani (ditto) (and translated gloriously by Elizabeth Harris)

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (thanks to my friend, Jenny, for reminding me of this incredible book! So this entry is an addition to the original list, judges)

Essays/Memoir
"Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin

"My Alma Mater is Auschwitz," by Edith Bruck (note, my translation)

"Journey into Night" by David Sedaris

"Black Men and Public Space" Brent Staples

"Going it Alone" by Rahawa Haile

"Winter in Abruzzo" by Natalia Ginzburg

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan 

"The Namesake" by Mason Stokes

"Brownsville Kitchen" by Alfred Kazin

“No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston 

"We Should All Be Feminists" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nonfiction (book-length)

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

If This is a Man, Primo Levi

Dora Bruder, Patrick Modiano

A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid

The Periodic Table, Primo Levi

Wanderlust. Rebecca Solnit (it's about WALKING! Walking!)

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

Family Lexicon ("Lessico Famigliare")

"Trial by Fire," by David Grann (in The New Yorker)

The Letters of Nancy Mitford

Aran Islands, Synge (definitely not this century, ha ha!)

Here in Our Auschwitz, Tadeusz Borowski 

Individual short stories

"The Haircut" by Ring Lardner

"Making Love" by Antonya Nelson

"Casta Diva" by Francesca Scotti

"Autumn Lessons" by F. Marzia Esposito (read my translation of it here!)

"Cortez Island" by Alice Munro

"Your Husband is Cheating on Us"

"The Dead," Joyce, just in case you can only read one story from Dubliners

"A Hand Reached Down..." David Gates

"The Key Game" by Ida Fink (click on link but it's devastating)

“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid

“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried,” by Amy Hempel

Poetry
"Now" by Denis Johnson
"Aubade" by Philip Larkin

"Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

"The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy (a poem I learned by heart as a girl -- yes I can still recite it. It's short!)

"Dulce et decorum est," Wilfred Owen

"The House," Warsan Shire

"The Second Coming," by Yeats

"When I think of Tamir Rice While Driving," Reginald Dwayne Betts

"Digging," by Seamus Heaney

"The Symbol," "To Be Born By Chance" and "Maybe," by Edith Bruck (note, my translation)

Graphic novel

Maus, Art Spiegelman

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel

In Italian, not available in translation

Viaggi e altri viaggi, Antonio Tabucchi (English translation forthcoming)

Andremo in Città by Edith Bruck, not yet available in translation BUT SOON! SOON!

Due Stanze Vuote, ibid ^^^

Passaggio in ombra (note the English translation could be available! Read an excerpt here)

(Yes, forgive me, I've included links to some of my translations because as a part-time translator, I only translate what moves me)

Tell me the literature you've loved. Don't worry about which century had the luck of seeing it published.

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