“Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945”

I write letters to the editor of The New York Times but only occasionally are they accepted. This one below was not but I remain fascinated by the book at the heart of my letter because it's about World War II, and ever since I began translating the work of Edith Bruck, I've been mesmerized by this epic period in recent history. As you know, I'm trying to read as many important books about the war and about Holocaust survivors as I can, and this one goes on the TBR pile.

To the editor of the New York Times Book Review,

In his review of Ian Buruma’s book, Stay Alive: Berlin,1939-1945, Kevin Peraino says he wishes the author had “delved deeper.” 

I don’t doubt him but if Buruma manages to convey even a bit of the uncanny experience of surviving World War II, especially in Germany, that will satisfy me. 

I’ve heard about the war and ‘the Greatest Generation’ my whole life, but stupidly ignored its importance until I began translating the work of a Holocaust survivor (Edith Bruck). 

Her story is fairly typical but no less compelling because of that: At age 13, she was deported from her native Hungary by the Nazis, and, as she would write later, “lost everyone and everything.” After I translated that line, I decided I needed to permanently study the Holocaust and by extension World War II. 

I’m not related to anyone who fought in combat but still the era not only witnessed the greatest atrocity of the modern age but also shaped my parents, born just before the war, and continued to influence the world I was born into, three decades after the fighting stopped. I’ll never know enough so I keep reading, and Buruma’s book now goes on the to-be-read pile.

Regards,

Jeanne Bonner

“When You Listen to This Song: On Memory, Loss, and Writing” (Lola Lafon)

I've reviewed a short nonfiction book for World Literature Today called When You Listen to This Song: On Memory, Loss, and Writing, but the review won't appear until July and since I remain haunted by it, I'm jotting down a few thoughts here (I've reviewed books for WLT before, and the magazine also published a speech by Edith Bruck that I translated called, "My Alma Mater is Auschwitz").

(UPDATE: You can now read the review here.)

It's a fascinating if somewhat slim exploration of the annex at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and behind-the-scenes details about Anne Frank’s life, diary, father, etc.

It raises lots of interesting questions about the image now attached to Anne and grapples with the topic in a very nuanced way, recognizing that the story of Anne Frank has long since ceased to be simply the tragic story of a girl whose life was cut short by barbarism. Author Lola Lafon writes, “How beloved she is, this young Jewish girl who is no longer."

Lafon wrote the book after sleeping in the annex at the Anne Frank House, not something just any visitor can do. (The annex is the hidden compartment where Anne and her family and another family lived, while trying to escape deportation).

As she prepares for the visit, she writes, “I will spend the night in this space where for 25 months eight people submitted themselves to silence, learning all the forms it could take, from whispers to muffled steps to total immobility.”

In preparation for reviewing this book (published by Yale University Press), I also read Ruth Franklin's The Many Lives of Anne Frank. Franklin writes, “Since it first appeared in the Netherlands more than 75 years ago, Anne – who, if she had survived the camps, would be nearly 100 years old – has become an icon.”

According to Franklin, the diary has sold 30 million copies and “is the most famous work of literature to arise from the Holocaust.” 

Like everyone else who's read the diary, I've had occasion to think about this poor little German girl whose life was cut short. But I've also had the opportunity to reflect on one particular aspect of her story: my author, Edith Bruck, was compared to Anne when her first book came out because it was published a few years after the diary was translated into Italian. Italian critics said Bruck was the kind of writer Anne could have become had she survived.

It’s an interesting comparison because Bruck, like all survivors including Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, has written about what Anne could not: what happened in the Nazi concentration camps and life after liberation. Moreover, many women survivors have told their stories but they failed to make a deep impression and hence don’t enter into the widely-known public conception of the Holocaust. That wasn’t the fate of Anne Frank’s diary, first published in Dutch in 1947. 

A reader can feel as though she knows a lot about Anne Frank without knowing many, many details of her story. Indeed, there are stunning little tidbits about the Frank family that will leave you breathless. For example, while in hiding in a hidden compartment in the building that housed Anne’s father’s company, the family had to keep to a strict schedule of silence since not all the workers knew they were there. Starting at 8 a.m. each day, they could make no noise whatsoever. Then at 12:30, when the workers broke for lunch, those in hiding could use the bathroom, have a bite to eat or talk. At 1:30, they were back to a routine of no noise, no movement, no conversations. 

Born in 1974, Lafon is widely known in France as a feminist writer. She is the author of the novel, The Little Communist Who Never Smiled. This book was translated from the French by Lauren Elkin. It's a very smooth translation.  

Why read this book? The author addresses the age-old scourges of anti-Semitism, exploitation and historical amnesia but has found a new approach in what some have called “a sleepover with the dead.” 

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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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Memories of the House of the Dead (Luciana Nissim Momogliano)

File under: What I'm reading

I read a very short book on the train to NYC in February by a woman who was deported with Primo Levi: Luciana Nissim Momogliano. 

It’s called Ricordi della casa dei morti. ["Memories of the house of the dead"]. A very insightful book! In the most difficult situation I can imagine, she managed to survive in the same way Primo Levi did: she was able to practice her profession – medicine – just as he worked as a chemist. But she was still starving, and she still observed atrocities. She says at one point that the head doctor in her barracks had to kill two children who were born in Auschwitz. Another semi-eyewitness account of this particular slice of the Holocaust but still not enough information for me [I'd like to read firsthand accounts of women who gave birth in the Nazi concentration camps. Do they exist?]

The book clarifies something I should have already understood: many Holocaust victims were gassed – thrown into the camera a gas – and then cremated. 

She also says when they received rations, the question was always: 'Do I keep some until tomorrow?' But she said any decision she made felt wrong -- because she was still starving.

She also was able to transfer to another concentration camp later in 1944 and that likely saved her as well. Her friend, Vanda Maestro, whom Primo Levi also wrote about, died after Luciana left for the other camp. 

I'm happy to say this is one more book from the canon I'm seeking to exhaust: books by women survivors of the Holocaust. Because women's experiences of the Shoah were different. It's something I first grasped when I read Edith Bruck's Andremo in città, and that revelation convinced me to translate the work (which, as you know, is called This Darkness Will Never End in my English translation). My life really changed once I met Edith Bruck!

Sidenote: I bought this book directly from Giuntina last summer during my visit to Florence. I had written to the editorial staff to say there were books of theirs that I couldn’t easily find so was there a bookshop onsite? There isn't but they said they would sell me the books directly so I went and happily spent more than I should have.

The author mentions that period of follia between July 1943 and September 1943 when Fascism appeared to be overthrown, only to have the Germans essentially invade Italy and re-impose Fascist rule. What a moment that must have been -- sheer joy followed by sheer terror and the anguish that descends when you realize the specter you thought you'd escape looms anew.

Nothing original to say but here I am: I'll simply have to read about World War II for the rest of my life. I'll never fully understand what our grandparents and parents lived through -- and none of mine were in combat! None of mine were Jewish, none of mine were deported or sent to a prisoner of war camp. And yet still: They lived through a period of immense sacrifice and tension, where the fate of the world hung in the balance. So I'm simply going to try to know as much about it as I can because its impact and scope shaped the world we're living in today.

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What I bought at I AM Books in Boston (2026)

Last year, I gave a talk about my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, at the Italian bookstore in Boston. It was wonderful to speak about this short story collection that I'd lovingly translated while surrounded by Italian books.

So when I visited Boston this year, I made a beeline for the store. I AM Books is in the Italian North End of the city, and it's adorable.

What I like: there are Italian books there -- which may seem quite obvious but it's important to state because it's not easy to buy Italian literature in the US at a reasonable price, or at all. There aren't that many shops that stock titles in the original language -- Rizzoli in New York is one place. And I AM Books is another.

But logically, the shop also stocks Italian books in translation (a good reason to give a talk about a translation there). Many people who pass the store won't be fluent in Italian or studying the language but may want to discover Italian literature in translation. 

As you can see, the shop also stocks magazines, and boy do I like that. If your store sells La Settimana Enigmistica or Bell'Italia, I will most likely need to buy a copy of one or both of them. And Mike bought a cooking magazine!

While remaining a solid bookstore that sells books, I AM Books also has a lot of fine gift items that a shopper might want as she visits the North End of Boston and becomes immersed in the Italian quarter. I went a little crazy last year when I was there to give the talk, and bought a cookbook plus a book for Leo about Italian hand gestures and a book by Natalia Ginzburg and... 

Last but not least, the store manager is a lovely person! She took charge of my reading, and made the shop a cozy place to talk about this book that means so much to me.

So if you're visiting Boston, consider stopping by I AM Books. And if you read or study Italian, don't just consider it -- make a point of visiting the store. You won't be sorry!

I AM Books

124 Salem Street

Boston, Mass.

iambooksboston.com 

'This Darkness Will Never End' turns one!

Once upon a time, I'd never heard of the phrase "book birthday." And now my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, is turning one. Happy book birthday to my little translation!

My life has changed since I began translating Edith Bruck’s work, and also in the year since my translation of her first short story collection was published. I've spent a lot of precious, joyful time talking to people about the woman who was describing herself when she wrote about a fictional girl in the short story, "Matzoh Bread," who was "the age I'd been when I lost everyone and everything." (Learn about my book giveaway here.)

I've gained a permanent side gig reading about World War II; at first, I devoured works by the other women authors who wrote about their experiences of deportation, and now almost anything pertaining to the war that gave birth to The Greatest Generation (I'm currently reading "The Longest Day," by Cornelius Ryan -- better late than never, right?).

We all have side tables and book shelves crammed with books we plan to read but I think This Darkness Will Never End, which brings Edith's seminal 1962 short story collection into the English-speaking world, is worthy of your time:

        Click here to buy from Amazon

        OR here to buy from Bookshop

And if you have a moment, you can write a review on Amazon. My sincere thanks to everyone who's done so already! And if you're on Goodreads, go ahead and shelve the book. After all, you've probably seen Roberto Benigni's film, "Life Is Beautiful," which was inspired in part by the title story of this book.

Also: are you in a book club? Here's a reading guide for the translation. I'd love for you to read the translation, and maybe you could also consider giving it as a gift.

If you’d like to read some of her other 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/

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 tidbits from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

I’ll close once again with one of my favorite lines from Edith’s work (which you can hear at the link to the American Scholar's podcast, "Read Me a Poem"):

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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Jeanne journals

I don't like it when the word 'journal' is used as a verb. Let's journal about this. OR: She spent the afternoon journaling...

It feels a bit like saying, 'I crochet' ... or ... 'I like scrapbooking.' Or, 'Excuse me while I get ready for an afternoon of canning.' (I know people enjoy these kinds of activities, but not me. Of course, for some of these people, the idea of writing in a physical journal would probably cause the same reaction).

But it's what I do -- a lot. I journal. In fact, I spend a good deal of time writing in my journal, reading what I've written in my journal or even simply admiring the physical appearance of my journals. What I am doing, really, is gazing at a kind of security blanket the journal represents -- when all goes awry, I can write it down in the journal. Or, whenever I have a thought about something I want to do, I must do, I should do: I can write it in my journal and the thought is preserved. Looking at a journal from last year is a little like looking at my favorite sweater. I've also found the journal to be not only a confidant who receives my inner thoughts but also one who accompanies me on my life's journey. In other words, it’s often a document of what I’ve achieved.

I mainly use my journals to write (as opposed to draw or log information like the number of miles one has run) but I also attach ephemera to some of the pages -- drawings by Leo, receipts from vacation stops, post-it notes destined for posterity, et al -- so they sometimes actually do have the air of scrapbooks. They capture a moment of my life. (I occasionally post diary entries on this blog. I also occasionally write diary entries in Italian).

As I've mentioned here before, I do keep a digital journal (an extensive one that’s composed of two dozen Word documents that span more than a decade), but I have a 13-year-old, which means two things to me:

*I don't want him to see me hunched over a computer 24/7 or constantly glancing at my phone, even if my purpose is to log a thought

*...And that's because: I want him to understand what I do and if he can see me writing with a pen in my journal from across the room or transcribing a translation into my journal or even stapling something onto a page of the journal that I want to keep, he may be able to understand what his writer-editor-translator-adjunct mom does for a living. (Maybe. Alternately, he might just think I twirl my hair for a living.)

What I'm Reading: Nobody's Girl

Reviewing books is one of many tasks I've taken on since dedicating myself to writing more than a decade ago. 

But I typically review Italian works that have been translated into English or other works of literary fiction.

So the short review I'm about to publish here doesn't necessarily mesh with the thousands of posts about Italy or translation or what I bought at Rizzoli, say. And the book in question doesn't sit naturally next to books about the Holocaust that I've been reading over the past few years as I translated Edith Bruck's work.

But it does reflect me as a person who knows there are some distinct ways that being a woman can differ from being a man (even if men, too, can be victims of rapists).

The posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl, by Virginia Giuffre is the story of how Jeffrey Epstein abused countless numbers of girls like the author.

As I mentioned in my 2025 reading roundup, I not only read the book to make a point, I BOUGHT it -- in hardback -- to make a "sales" point: This topic is important and I'll show you how important with my money.

(I'll also show you -- whoever you are -- that the topic is so sensitive that I hid the book under my pillow because I didn't want my son to see it, even though he unfortunately knows all about Epstein. All teens and tweens who happen to catch "Saturday Night Live" or "The Daily Show" or who may read headlines on the front page of The New York Times, as Leo, my son, often does, know about Epstein).

Much of what I could tell you about the book is well-known -- the most-reported aspect, I suppose, involves the Royal Family.

But what I took away from the book is the following: many, many people had occasion to observe Jeffrey Epstein with young girls.

The best magazine you've never read (unless you're 12)

When “The Week Junior” arrives in the mail, my 12-year-old son sits down immediately to read it cover to cover. One quick look at its smartly-written articles and eye-catching graphics, I see why he loves it so much. As a former newspaper reporter, I am thrilled at his interest!

The weekly publication, which debuted in 2020, is aiming to instill a habit in young readers that’s already a bygone one for many of their parents. Its very existence gives me hope for the future of journalism, and it doesn’t dumb anything down; coverage has included such high-brow topics as Henry Kissinger’s visit to China.

The magazine is so good that I've pitched feature articles about it but haven't been successful so I am writing about it here (in fact, I started this post more than a year ago, hence the reference to a 12-year-old son. He's now 13!). 

Just like a news magazine or newspaper, The Week Junior covers a little bit of everything, and there are always calls for reader submissions of photos or ideas. Coverage includes tween and teen-friendly topics such as Taylor Swift and the World Cup, in addition to hard news about politics and world events.

I'm writing about it now so that the magazine can attract more subscribers and keep going. It’s hitting newsstands at a time when scores of magazines and newspapers for grownups have closed. I hope it's successful longterm because it's been a wonderful gift for Leo (courtesy of my one-of-a-kind Aunt Marianne).

And of course, the next generation of news consumers needs to be nurtured.

Journalism is at an inflection point and our national digital addiction has also reached crisis proportions. The Week Junior is attempting to instill the habit of reading the news in the next generation at a time when adults as well as children are giving up on print publications. 

I am blogging about this magazine because I want the world to know about it, even if I've been unsuccessful pitching a feature article about it. Maybe another writer will see my post and write about the magazine. Or a parent will subscribe.

This is a magazine any parent would be proud to have in the home, and which furnishes children not only with information about our world but with curiosity about it.

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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

 -30-

What I read in 2025

Not a great year in reading for me and I am all to blame, a self-inflicted wound owing to distraction and commitments related to the translation (I also taught a class at Wesleyan, which requires me to re-read a lot of books from the course text list and thus neglect any non-course books I may have been reading). 

But I do like to log the year in reading and so here are a few books that sparked my imagination in significant ways:

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

The experience of reading John and Paul was so seismic that I wonder if perhaps I've been excluding a genre that I would otherwise love, namely biographies.

It’s been a while since I devoured a book the way I read this book. As I wrote in my journal, "I’ve been staying up until 11 p.m. reading it – not looking at Facebook, not fooling around with the laptop. Just reading as much of the book as I can manage – running to it whenever I have a moment free."

Am I reading the wrong books? So should I be reading more biographies? Or books about rock icons I love?! (Quick! Someone send me a biography of Bono and/or U2)

I think childhood -- and childhood obsessions -- could be the key here. When I read about the Beatles, it's as though I am reading about someone I knew – as if someone wrote a biography of St. Anthony’s High School or the streets of Florence or my mother. I followed the Beatles so closely as a young girl that I suppose that's why. As I wrote on Goodreads, it was part and parcel of my girlhood obsession with the Beatles to explore in minute detail the inner workings of the Lennon-McCarthy songwriting partnership, and thanks to this wonderful dual biography of the two Beatles, I can do just that. For anyone who's ever had any kind of Beatle worship, this book is essential. And what an interesting concept! Exploring this relationship as a one-of-a-kind partnership that eschews easy definition. 

I read another book that fascinated me while also being revolting:

Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre

I both recommend and don't recommend this book by one of the best-known victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Would you like to confront pure evil? On the other hand, I made a point of purchasing the hardback so that my purchase could be counted in the hopes there are many, many sales. Sales = interest. Sales = this topic is important.

Per my routine, I also read a book by French novelist Patrick Modiano (which I was even able to review for the Boston Globe) and I re-read A Christmas Carol, something I've been doing every year at Christmas for about a decade (it's worth reading each year a line with which Marley chastises Scrooge: "Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business...")

And I read another book that satisfies my nascent need to know everything about Nazi-occupied Europe: The Propagandist. I wrote about it for the 'What We're Reading' rubric published by The Common literary magazine (back in March). It's a fascinating though also revolting book about a French family that was pro-Hitler during World War II and most notably long afterwards as well! I believe it caused a bit of a stir when it was published in France. 

I also began reading (not read, in the past tense) (see distraction above, also insistence on reading multiple books at once) Eichmann in Jerusalem, the seminal account by Hannah Arendt of Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial for war crimes. There are a few books in the world that are so fundamental for understanding human behavior that you can glean quite a bit by reading half or failing to finish, and this is one such book. What I read about Eichmann's attitude, his ordinariness, his spoken testimony at the trial, the fact that he lived for quite a few years (dare I say happily?) in Argentina before being captured, all of this furnishes me with new horrifying information about the semi-recent historical event that engrosses me the most. (But I plan to finish it this year). 

Similarly, I read a book I'd long been searching for: Lettera da Francoforte by "my" author, Edith Bruck (translation: Letter from Frankfurt; not available in English). I found it at Il Libraccio in Florence -- a review copy, I believe, since on the front it says "inedito," ('unpublished'). It's the story of a Holocaust victim who tries to apply to a compensation program run by the German government. No, I do not know how autobiographical this work is but I'm going to see if I can find out. Did Edith ever apply to this fund? Is this fund real? I've come to know a little bit about the Claims Conference, which distributes compensation to victims of the Holocaust but I don't believe it is run by Germany.

What I'm Reading: The Art of X-Ray Reading

Writers are readers, right?

They have to be, and the author of the book, The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing, does an amazing job of showing the fruits we enjoy when we read very closely.

Roy Peter Clark examines work by James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Zora Neale Hurston and Joan Didion, among others. Not summaries, not book reports but a deep examination of word choice, and how authors "create" meaning through the particular order of words.

Much of it is work I've read but perhaps not in this way or with the particular lens he employs. And besides, a short story like Joyce's "The Dead" is ripe for re-reading, savoring, deciphering, dissecting, all of which you'll find in the chapter dedicated to Joyce. As you can imagine, he examines the final lines of the story where words are repeated and he talks about the deft use of repetition here -- in other contexts, it could be something to avoid but the conscious re-use of particular words underscores the paralysis experienced by the protagonist, Gabriel Conroy.

In the back, Clark compiled a list of a long list of great sentences from a wide variety of works.

I actually read this book in 2025. I've been meaning to finish this post for a while but other commitments came first.

Before I conclude, let me say something about one section that I especially recommend: his analysis of the Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming." I've published the first stanza in another blogpost but it's worth reproducing it again in part, especially in light of the author's focus on the word gyre, which he says is an unusual word:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre//The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Clark gets into the nitty gritty of the word's Greek origins, offers synonyms (vortex, maelstrom) and also notes it comes at the end of a sentence that begins with the repetition of a present participle -- unusual. A poem written to reflect a period of political turbulence, completely embodied in one word.

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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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A poem for today? The Second Coming by Yeats

(First stanza, only. How prescient W. B. Yeats was!)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

 (Thanks to the Poetry Foundation. Also thanks to Roy Peter Clark for his wonderful analysis of this poem in his book, The Art of X-Ray Reading). (Also: photo courtesy of me! From our 2024 trip to Ireland, which included a stop at his grave).

Please review 'This Darkness Will Never End' on Amazon

I've been talking up my translation every way I can -- blogposts, public readings, bookfairs, Facebook messages, a trip to Ohio, mentions in a family Christmas newsletter, you name it!

And I've been foisting this work on everyone I know since it was published last April.

But I've neglected to say anything about reviewing This Darkness Will Never End on Amazon. Probably because I was born in 1850, as I like to say (I also like to add that Leo corrected me one day with this quip: "More like 1770." Ouch!) And also because I've been focused on readings, my dayjob, Leo, breathing, etc.

I do, of course, use Amazon! All the time. 

And I do want people to find it on Amazon! A famous author actually did just that and she got in touch with me, which was amazing.

You don't need to be famous to leave a review on Amazon of This Darkness Will Never End.

You just need to have some thoughts about the translation or Edith Bruck. So if you've read it, I hope you will leave a review and provide some honest feedback. Here's the link again:

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

GRAZIE di cuore!

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At a little library near you: 'This Darkness Will Never End'

UPDATED I've been dropping off copies of the translation at little libraries, including the one in Washington Market Park in Manhattan seen in the photo. I affix a note that explains how the book is a gift to whoever finds it and perhaps if the reading experience is a pleasure, would the person consider buying a copy for a friend?

Thousands of books are published each year and it's easy for a book from a small press to get lost, especially a translated title. So I took it upon myself to find a new way to introduce the book to a wider audience.

Since This Darkness Will Never End is a short story collection, I think it will work well for book clubs and I've devised a book club guide that you can find here.

It's also good for course adoptions -- thanks to Otterbein for proving this! My translation of Edith Bruck's first short story collection complements other Holocaust narrative texts such as works by Primo Levi or even The Diary of Anne Frank.

UPDATE: Copies of the translation have also been placed in Little Libraries in Boston, New Haven and Belmar, NJ.

Now that I think about it, I should have included my email address on the note affixed to the translation -- that way, I would possibly know who found the copy. Like a message in a bottle!

If you haven't read the translation yet, here's hoping you find a copy in a little library near you! Or you can buy it here or on Amazon (where you can consider writing a customer review!).

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Meeting Donatella Di Pietrantonio at Rizzoli this year

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

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

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

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

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

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What I'm reading: Ginzburg, sempre Ginzburg

I keep a book log of what I read, and it's now evolved into more of a book journal because I love noting passages that intrigue me. And I also note whether I am "reading" or "re-reading" a work. Each year, I am always re-reading something by Natalia Ginzburg.

But this year, I am actually reading new works by her as well! Not just revisiting Lessico Famigliare ("Family Lexicon," from NYRB, in the superb Jenny McPhee translation) or Le voci della sera, which is one of my favorites, but actually venturing into new Ginzburg territory, namely:

Vita immaginaria

Mai devi domandarmi

And in particular, I'd like to highlight the following work, which, as you will learn, is quite unusual:

È difficile parlare di sé

This last work is for the Ginzburg completist, and I keep it on the bedside table, which is to say I am not reading it cover to cover bur rather dipping into it as time allows. 

It is, and I kid you not, the transcript of a series of television interviews with Ginzburg in which she mulls over all of her major works, prompted by host Marino Sinibaldi. There were also some guests who made appearances -- critics and colleagues from Einaudi and some other famous writers. All of her works and each stage of her career, lovingly explored.

What's especially compelling is she elaborates on the death of her husband, Leone Ginzburg, at the hands of the Fascists, in a way she did not in any of her major published works. She reported on his death in her seminal essay, "Winter in Abruzzi," if reporting can consist of a single line (I don't blame her one bit -- when the candle of hope is brutally snuffed out, often the less said the better).

Of particular interest to me now among the works explored in the compendium is the essay "Gli ebrei," ["The Jews"], which appeared in Vita immaginaria and which was published immediately following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre where Israeli athletes were murdered.

Most notably, she wonders if the Jews who settled in modern-day Israel should have settled elsewhere, if they should have been given land elsewhere (she mentions Canada). She says many other amazing things in this essay (and the book of transcripts, for that matter) about her identity as a woman with a Jewish and Catholic upbringing. I highly recommend it!

I've written about Ginzburg's work for the Kenyon Review and also for the literary site, Reading in Translation. She remains an enigma -- someone who lived a traditional woman's life, writing in fits and starts when she wasn't changing diapers or putting dinner on the table, someone who eschewed feminism, someone who can at times be hidden in plain sight, to quote an article about her, but who has become in the US arguably the most famous Italian woman writer, aside from Elena Ferrante, possibly, only possibly. She might be THE most famous Italian woman writer for Americans.

More so than Elsa Morante. More so than Grazia Deledda. More so than Dacia Maraini.

If you haven't read any works by her, begin with Family Lexicon (preferably the Jenny McPhee translation published by NYRB). It won the Strega, which is Italy's highest literary award.

And happy reading!

What I’m reading: 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs'

What I’m reading:

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

It’s been a while since I have devoured a book the way I am reading this book. I’ve been staying up until 11 p.m. reading it – not looking at Facebook, not fooling around with the laptop. Just reading as much of the book as I can manage – running to it whenever I have a moment free.

HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON THIS?

Am I reading the wrong books?

Should I be reading more biographies?

I think childhood -- and childhood obsessions -- could be the key to understanding my readerly swooning here. When I read about the Beatles, it's as though I am reading about someone I knew – as if someone wrote a biography of St. Anthony’s High School or Eclectic House at Wesleyan.

Growing up, I listened to Beatles albums a lot. Thanks to my uncles Joe and Pat, we learned about the Beatles as children and had the records. I loved the anthologies to start and then later Abbey Road, The White Album and Let It Be.

As a tween and young teen, I would obsessively listen to Beatles-only radio programs (for example, Scott Muni's "Ticket To Ride"). I studied the album covers for clues just as I was told to do so on these programs. And the drama of their breakup was something I felt keenly -- more than a decade after the actual breakup!

The book is also just plain fascinating.

As I wrote on the Goodreads site, I don't think I could love this book more! I am returning to my girlhood obsession with the Beatles and exploring in minute detail the inner workings of the Lennon-McCarthy songwriting partnership, thanks to this wonderful dual biography of the two Beatles. For anyone who's ever had any kind of Beatle worship, this book is essential. And what an interesting concept! Exploring this relationship as a one-of-a-kind partnership that eschews easy definition. 

It's about friendship, it's about collegiality, it's about boyhood but it also confirms the partnership. I literally cannot put it done! Excellent work, Ian Leslie.

For more information about the book, visit the author's website where he details the genesis of this project:

https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney

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