May 28: Italian Cultural Institute (NYC) book launch for This Darkness Will Never End

I'm thrilled to say I'll be presenting my translation of Edith Bruck's short stories, This Darkness Will Never End, at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, adjacent to the consulate.

And I will be in conversation with Prof. Philip Balma from UCONN who wrote Edith Bruck in the Mirror: Fictional Transitions and Cinematic Narratives.

I've been on a mini-book tour this Spring, and the final stop, for now, is the home of Italian culture in New York. Join us!

Details:

Date: Wed., May 28

Time: 6 p.m.

Place: Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, NY, NY

Note: Copies of the translation will be on sale but cash is preferred

For more information, please visit:

https://iicnewyork.esteri.it/en/gli_eventi/calendario/this-darkness-will-never-end-book-presentation/ 

What I bought at I AM Books (Boston)

I don't get to visit Italian bookstores often because well, I live in America and there aren't many Italian bookstores here (more French bookstores I would say, and I say that with envy).

So when I had a reading at I AM Books in Boston, I had to make a few purchases, including the cute little book you see here, which was a gift for the Little Italian Language Learner.

I felt like it might contain a curse or two and that ranks very high on Leo's list of things he wants to master!

Italian curses!

I also bought a cookbook for Mike, a special edition of Calvino's Invisible Cities and a Natalia Ginzburg book because I now know I need to read something by Ginzburg every year -- I need to, and I simply do. This year all kinds of new Ginzburg books, perhaps because I've accepted the full-blown obsession and place her, oddly, in some ways, next to Sciascia, Fitzgerald and Joyce, three authors I frequently re-read (I suppose I could add Dickens to the list, since I re-read A Christmas Carol every year, but I digress).

The bookstore is in Boston's North End, the traditional Italian quarter, and I have to say it has a very nice selection of Italian books (i.e., decent size), both for adults and children, plus American books and all kinds of gift items I didn't have enough time to peruse.

I AM Books

124 Salem Street

Boston, Mass.

iambooksboston.com 

Newtonville Books is book heaven

I had the honor of reading at Newtonville Books in the Boston area yesterday and I am slightly mad at the words I am writing because they sound so tired and trite. 

If I tell you I felt like I fell asleep reading and then woke up in book heaven, would that convey how delicious this bookstore is? Somehow the space is carved into the side of a glorious old stone church, making it feel like a book cave in the interior but also a book sunroom in the storefront part on the street that's full of windows. And they have every book you want, and also those books you didn't know you wanted, and the special composition notebooks and lovely bookmarks and a spacious children's section.

And Mary Cotton, the owner, is a Book Saint! (thanks to husband Jaime for the invite to the store).

And the folks that came -- my family, one of my oldest friends and her son, fellow Bennington alums, and one random guy who asked a very astute question about the evolution of theories on writing fiction about the Holocaust -- were delightful!

(And, side note: the porridge at Johnny's Luncheonette is surprisingly delicious!)

So a perfect day, thanks to Newtonville Books and the wonderful people I've come to know in my life!

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What literary translation taught me about World War II

During a 2018 trip to Italy, I found myself face to face with history. I was meeting with a woman who had once come before the notorious Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele. At only 13 years of age, she’d managed to elude his attention during a treacherous prisoner selection process in Auschwitz.

The woman was Edith Bruck, considered the most prolific Italian author to write about the Holocaust by scholars, and I was at her apartment because I’d begun to translate her short stories, which are based on her experiences of Nazi persecution. She was deported from her native Hungary in 1944. I was stunned to learn that although she’d lost both of her parents and a brother to the concentration camps, she harbored no hatred.

After she was liberated, she began telling the world what she’d seen to fulfill a pledge made to dying prisoners. And after I met Ms. Bruck, I vowed to tell her story by translating as much of her work as I could.

This year marks eight decades since World War II ended, and there have been various commemorations, including May 8, the 80^th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. I wasn’t alive during the war, and my parents were small children at the time, living in the New York area. None of my relatives served in combat in World War II. But I’ve grown up in a world shaped by the conflict – we all have. And as I’ve translated Ms. Bruck’s work, I’ve begun to devour books about the Holocaust specifically and World War II in general. I’ve concluded I’ll never know enough about the greatest tragedy of the 20^th century or the sacrifices made by so many during World War II. So, I’ll keep reading.

In a speech called “My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz,” that Ms. Bruck gave to college students, the Hungarian-born Italian author said living in concentration camps taught her three things: “You’ll never be a racist, [or] a fascist; you’ll never discriminate against anyone; and you’ll never be like your persecutors.” Many Americans who fought the Nazis learned that lesson, too.

Bruck’s story reminds me that new tragedies don’t displace old ones. She has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, and she vehemently opposes what she termed in an interview with the Italian news site, Il Fatto Quotidiano “an endless war against the Palestinians.” But nothing that happens today changes the fact that she and six million others were violently evicted from their lives and taken on a cruel journey that in her case left her parentless and stateless.

For all of our advances in this modern age, it often feels as though we forget the lessons so painstakingly learned by those who came before us. The past is always getting rediscovered, but sometimes too late.

Rediscovery, as it turns out, is part of a literary translator’s job description. That’s because translators routinely unearth works of literature from past decades that have been overlooked. In addition, translators often introduce into their native languages authors celebrated in one country but virtually unknown in another.

That’s true in Ms. Bruck’s case; she’s a living legend in Italy, and at 94, one of the last great chroniclers of the Holocaust. Her work has been translated into French, German and Spanish. Pope Francis insisted on meeting her to pay homage to her work bearing witness. And although she isn’t a household name here, millions of American movie-goers are familiar with one of her stories because it’s considered the basis by film scholars and literary critics of Roberto Benigni’s 1997 Oscar-winning film, “Life is Beautiful.”

Literary translation can sometimes feel like a magic trick. You reveal a text that until the moment it’s published in English has been a hidden treasure, locked away in a foreign language. But in my work translating Edith Bruck’s stories, what’s revealed has been hidden in plain sight. We all learned about the Nazis, right?

Yes and no, it turns out. In this digital age, information is so ubiquitous that we’re all drowning in it. To be sure, many stories about World War II have been told, and decades of commemorations have taken place.

But the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe forces us all to think about our history. Can we live up to the example set by previous generations? What actions will we take to fight tyranny now?

The outlook can at times appear bleak. Many people don’t seem to know or care about these lessons. But if some among us want to coerce the human race into repeating the mistakes of our forefathers, authors like Edith Bruck are here to remind us all of the atrocities of our past. And even when Ms. Bruck is no longer with us, her translators will carry on that sacred work. Because we know which side of history we want to be on and it’s not Mengele’s side. 

The National Endowment for the Arts enriches our lives

I know firsthand how important the National Endowment for the Arts is because the agency awarded me a grant that covered a large percentage of the costs associated with translating This Darkness Will Never End. 

I will be forever grateful to the NEA that its judges saw the merit of my project and my translation sample, a short story by Edith Bruck set during World War II that imagined a young German boy -- the son of a Nazi official -- rescuing a Jewish stowaway and taking her home. 

Edith Bruck is an important literary figure in Italy, and is considered by scholars the most prolific writer of Holocaust narrative working in Italian. The NEA knows the value of this!

The collection is now published (see link above; it's been reviewed by the Jewish Book Council, among other outlets) and it also includes other stories about Jewish families struggling as the specter of the Holocaust looms ahead, or later, postwar, remembering the dark horror of destruction that took nearly everyone and everything.

I'm also thoroughly impressed with how the agency goes about its work. I applied twice. When my first application was rejected, the staff told me I was eligible to talk by phone with the NEA to learn what the judges recommended if I wanted to re-apply. They made wonderful suggestions -- because the NEA is invested in any work of art with merit and a translation of Edith Bruck's work is always worthy of consideration -- and I incorporated the ideas into my second successful application.

So now, American readers have the opportunity to explore the lost world of Hungarian Jews through the stories found in This Darkness Will Never End, Edith Bruck's first short story collection. American readers can immerse themselves in the perspective of a survivor, inspired to create fiction that grapples with the unending sorrow stemming from losing both parents and a brother to the Holocaust.

It's fiction that scholars believe inspired Roberto Benigni when he filmed his Oscar-winning movie, "Life is Beautiful." Millions of Americans have seen that film -- and now they can read the story that helped inspire Benigni and perhaps get to know the author, a living legend in Italy.

And again, where are the NEA funds going?

In my case, to pay for the translation of this lost Italian Jewish classic. To provide a stipend to me so I could work on the translation and not translate the book for free (something that translators often do, since to pitch a project to a publisher or submit a grant application, they need a sample of the book in question).

Now the stories of this wonderful Italian author -- whom Pope Francis insisted on meeting to pay homage -- are available in English for the first time.

You can learn more about my project and the support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts here and you can also learn about other translations supported by the NEA here.

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who work at the NEA!

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Happy birthday to Edith Bruck: 'My Author'

May 3 is Edith Bruck's birthday. Edith, or "my author."

That's how I refer to her, more often than not.

And I am here to wish her a happy (early) birthday.

This photo was taken in 2022 when we met for a second time at her apartment in Rome.

I'm eager to see her again so we can look through This Darkness Will Never End together!

Edith turns 94 this year! Whenever I call or email her, she tells me about her current projects. She's always working on something. She's also frequently quoted in the newspapers and she's appeared on Italian television hundreds of times (she worked in TV earlier in her career). All of this to say, her creativity and industriousness don't ever stop. She's constantly inspired by this world, even though it conspired against her and "swallowed up" her parents, her brother, her way of life.

If you want to learn more about Edith Bruck, go here.

If you want to read a sample of my translation, you can find a story called "Silvia" published in translation by Hunger Mountain here.

If you want to read some of Edith's poems, go here.

If you want to read about women survivors such as Edith Bruck and how their stories have been overlooked, take a look at this article I wrote for the American Scholar.

Tanti auguri a Edith!

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Jewish Book Council on This Darkness Will Never End

I'm thrilled to say the influential and authoritative Jewish Book Council has published a review of This Darkness Will Never End, and it's an exceptionally perceptive review.

Reviewer Eleanor Foa called the collection an "impressive book of short stories."

Among the highlights, this spot-on observation:

"This Dark­ness Will Nev­er End does not direct­ly depict the Holo­caust. Instead, this col­lec­tion of fable-like tales plunges us into the lives of poor, rur­al, Jew­ish fam­i­lies — most­ly from the point of view of women and chil­dren — before, dur­ing, and after the war. We know their future, but they do not. This van­ished world is vivid­ly ren­dered and incred­i­bly poignant, par­tic­u­lar­ly because of what is inferred." 

To read the full review, go here:

https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/this-darkness-will-never-end 

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Ciambellina reads at Boston's Italian bookstore

Tonight! I'll be reading at I AM Books in Boston.

That's Beantown's Italian bookstore!

A place I've long wanted to visit (and where I expect I will stock up on all kinds of Italian books).

Nicola, who owns the store, was the first bookseller to graciously agree to host me so I could spread the word about This Darkness Will Never End.

And he did a beautiful job with the flyer!

I look forward to speaking to Boston's Italophiles about this 1962 Italian short story classic, and the woman behind it, Edith Bruck. At 93, she continues to be an important voice in Italy's literary world.

To register, visit this link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jeanne-bonner-presents-this-darkness-will-never-end-tickets-1329961293029 

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sun., May 18 – Newtonville Books (Boston)

 

Wed., May 21 – West Hartford Public Library 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW TO BUY

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

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

Or you can buy it from Bookshop:

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

Amazon has it, too.

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

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

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Jeanne on a podcast talking about writing

I'm embarrassed to say I forgot about this! But the kind folks at the Personal Element Podcast featured my New York Times' essay about recording Leo on their podcast.

https://personalelementpodcast.com/episode-1-lorem-ipsum/

It was their very first episode. Since then, they've featured a number of writers, including Rachel Zemach and Diana Xin. What's cool is the hosts talk about your essay. It exists separately from you!

Link to original essay here.

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Rose Girone, the oldest known Holocaust survivor, dies at 113 (CNN)

My first published obituary for CNN -- and I'm proud to say it is one I pitched, and one I knew we had to have.

Rose Girone survived both German and Japanese persecution, and managed to live eight decades beyond  the end of World War II.

Girone was one of about 10 pre-written obits I completed. Thanks to the USC Shoah Foundation, I was able to watch hours of interviews with Girone where she matter-of-factly described the treatment she endured first in Germany, as a young pregnant wife, and later as a refugee in China, under Japanese domination.

It's a rare instance where elements of my two part-time gigs converged: editing for CNN and researching the Holocaust for my literary translation work.

Read the full obit here: 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/us/rose-girone-obit

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Birthday journal

Normally for my birthday, I record an entry in my digital journal. A habit whose name in shorthand is, 'Birthday Journal.' Just a diary entry designed to note and provide my mental temperature for future me, who will be re-reading Birthday Journal entries to revisit, to reminisce, to relive.

And I intend to continue with the tradition but I also decided to do something else this year.

I am feeling particular vulnerable this birthday and so I am reaching for my security blanket -- writing. The writing I've managed to produce AND publish. It's a selfish exercise -- safely indulged perhaps only on one's birthday or death bed, and not sure about the former -- but perhaps it could shed a bit of light for those similarly vulnerable this year for any kind of reason.

So here are bits of of my own writing that fill me with pride, and which are not behind a paywall that I can't scale (the links to the pieces for The New York Times are gift articles):

About motherhood (The New York Times):

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/well/family/recording-the-sound-of-my-childs-voice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.104.mPll.Ay79fdY7jDCL&smid=url-share

About issues of great personal interest, including our Down Syndrome friends (NYT):

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/well/family/in-toy-ads-and-on-the-catwalk-models-with-down-syndrome.html?unlocked_article_code=1.104.cPce.3-6WkMS7lv1k&smid=url-share

About grief (Brevity):

https://themillions.com/2023/01/the-books-that-made-my-father.html

About the glorious 1980s!!! (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/entertainment/brat-pack-documentary-mccarthy-cec/index.html

About dogs! (namely Caramel!)

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2020/11/25/the-dog-journal/

About language and its intoxicating ways (The Millions):

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

Thank you all for your support!

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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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What I bought at Rizzoli (Jan. 2025)

I had to travel light when a few weeks ago I visited Rizzoli, my favorite bookstore in New York City: so just two books. But the one by Donatella Di Pietrantonio? (Borgo Sud) Pinch me! -- I had actually met her that day as part of the Multipli Forti Italian literature conference organized by the Italian Cultural Institute, NYU, Fordham and Rizzoli, among other organizations.

As for Un bene al mondo, by Andrea Bajani, well, I am still limping after immersing myself in his novel, Se consideri le colpe, (stunning English translation by Elizabeth Harris, "If You Kept a Record of Sins," published by Archipelago). It's about a boy whose jet-setting mother largely abandons him to pursue a career -- and a love life away from her husband -- in Romania. I can only hope this new title by Bajani offers slightly less anguish, otherwise I won't recover.

I must admit -- having just reviewed a new Patrick Modiano novel for the Boston Globe -- that I fleetingly eyed the French section. As the Rizzoli shopping bags proudly proclaim, the bookstore carries books in Italian, English AND French!

I'm sure some visit the store because it is stunningly elegant.

Others may visit the store because it is a short block from Eataly, or because it's on a wonderfully tranquil block of Broadway that more or less deadends into Madison Square Park.

And, of course, the shop has dozens of book-adjacent gift items -- the most incredible journals, for example. (And sometimes La Settimana Enigmistica).

But I go for the foreign books, and one day, I am going to give into my urge to buy French books, too!

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"My Alma Mater is Auschwitz" in World Literature Today

Thrilled to say my translation of a speech by Edith Bruck entitled, "My Alma Mater is Auschwitz," has been published!

Edith gave this speech in 2018 when she received an honorary doctorate from a university in Rome. It gave her occasion to ponder her own education, which was interrupted when at age 12, she was seized from her loving home and sent to Auschwitz, so unsurprisingly, she approached the topic from an unusual angle that demands our full attention.

The piece begins:

 As the poorest among the poor, with or without anti-Semitism and the race laws, I wouldn’t have been able to attend university. My alma mater is Auschwitz, a place that’s become the symbol of absolute evil among the 1,635 concentration camps that belonged to the ultra-civilized Germany and other countries allied with or occupied by Hitler.

Auschwitz: the university where you learn everything. Above all, to know yourself. There, you learn anthropology, philosophy, history, psychology, faith and religion. The value of life, the value of bread. But it also teaches the sorrow you feel when a blonde child spits on you.

There’s much to learn for the man who in slavery is defenseless and incapable of looking after himself. There’s much to learn for the woman who’s stronger and more resistant to the pain, shrewder and more capable of coming up with tricks to evade selection for the crematorium. The woman who learns to make herself invisible in order to gain another day of life.

You also learn the lingo of swear words. The range of behavior among the different social classes. Shame and pity for the guards, though the cold, the hunger and the terror cloud your reason and don’t permit much feeling.

You learn to understand everything. You understand the dehumanizing of the deported who become Kapos. You understand and pity the companions willing to take on a miserable job in exchange for the chance to steal a piece of turnip from the bottom of the soup pot.

But you also discover light in the darkness. When for example a soldier gives you a warm potato, a tattered glove, when he leaves a bit of jelly in the mess tin he’s tossed you to wash, and when he asks you, “What’s your name?” It sounds like the voice of heaven. You’re no longer prisoner #11152. You exist!

And so, you begin to hope you’ll come out of that hell, and come out a better person because you won’t ever forget three things: that you’ll never be a racist, a fascist; you’ll never discriminate against anyone; and you’ll never be like your persecutors.

You can read the rest at World Literature Today:

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

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Remembering the Holocaust at the Italian Consulate (Jan. 27)

On January 27, a crowd will gather outside the Italian Consulate in New York, no matter the temperature. 

It always does for International Holocaust Remembrance Day when the Italian consul, staff from Centro Primo Levi and others take turns reading the names of thousands of Italian Jews who were deported from Italy by the Nazis and killed in concentration camps across Europe. It will be one of many events connected with the day, which will mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. 

But Italy has a special – and damning – connection to the Holocaust. It collaborated with Germany on pushing Jews to the margins of society through the 1938 Racial Laws, among other measures, and then exterminating as many as possible. 

This event is arguably sui generis because while Italy played a critical role in persecuting the Jews, the country had a relatively small Jewish population and so the number of names read is a little less than 10,000 -- a number that allows for reading all of the victims' names in the space of a day. It is a one-of-a-kind commemoration for those who somberly read the names and even for the strangers walking by on their way to work or school, hearing even just for a moment an echo of all that was lost.

And I will be there to pay my respects. What's commemorated on Jan. 27 is on my mind night and day, as I await final publication of This Darkness Will Never End, my translation of Edith Bruck's 1962 short story collection (Italian title: Andremo in città).

For more information:

https://primolevicenter.org/events/giorno-della-memoria-2025/

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Writing about Patrick Modiano for the Boston Globe (Jan. 19, 2025)

So thrilled to write about Patrick Modiano in the Sunday Boston Globe. His newest novel, Ballerina, which will be published this week by Yale University Press, reminded me of a saying attributed to Henry Moore about the necessity of having a task that consumes you every day -- one that you'll never be able to complete, however. Presumably Moore was thinking about sculpture but what about writing fiction in a bid to exhume the personal and political ghosts of wartime Paris?

Modiano has published dozens of books -- yes, dozens (and I've read and re-read many of them); and nearly all of them circle a particular time period -- the Occupation and the 30-year-period that followed in France -- and a particular obsession: what Daddy did during the war.

As I mention in the review, Modiano's father was Jewish and on the run from the Nazis. A terrible story and regrettably very common in that period but Alberto Modiano took a different approach: if the Nazis essentially outlawed his Jewish identity, then an outlaw he would be, trading goods on the Black Market, possibly collaborating in odd ways.

In Ballerina, which was translated by Mark Polizzotti, Modiano only touches on such things obliquely but the mystery of his father's existence  -- and also the neglect shown both by Albert and Albert's wife to their two children, including young Patrick -- continues to haunt France's most famous living author.

Read the review at the Globe site here:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/15/arts/in-ballerina-patrick-modiano-again-revisits-wartime-paris/

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My new English translation -- This Darkness Will Never End (out soon!)

Today I sent back corrections on the typeset proofs of my translation, This Darkness Will Never End.

Hundreds of little steps, seemingly, are behind the publishing of a book, in this case a translation of a short story collection by Edith Bruck. Conferring with the editor at Paul Dry Books, my publisher. Conferring with the marketing executive. Contacting bookstores about the possibility of holding a reading. 

All of this after spending a year translating the book!

So, lots of work but what a hum there is in my little heart! What a labor of love it has been. I am grateful for: 

*Translating a book from Italian, which is such a vital part of my life it feels like a twin that follows me everywhere. 

*Translating a 1962 classic that's been overlooked by the Anglophone world, and one that's by a woman author. 

*And translating a writer whose experiences of the Holocaust have forced me to conclude I don't know enough about this critical period of history -- and I never will. So I will simply study it for the rest of my life. 

As I noted in an article for the American Scholar about the work of women survivors, the experiences of women often offer a different perspective on the Holocaust but it's one that's sometimes been marginalized or forgotten so I still have so much to discover.

Oh and the book has its own page on the publisher's site. Here it is:

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

Edith once called Auschwitz "the University of Evil," but she said, "You also discover light in the darkness."

The book will be published in April -- so please, stay tuned.

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All I Want for Christmas is Guglielmo Coffee

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

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

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

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

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

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