New Summer Titles from Italica Press

It’s been a very busy summer here at Italica Press. As September approaches we’re about to publish four new titles, three in our Medieval & Renaissance series, and one new work in Modern Italian Fiction.

The medieval and Renaissance works include a new edition of Guido A. Guarino’s translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s On Famous Women, first pubished in 1963. This was based on the edition of Mathias Apiarius, printed in Bern in 1539. This new edition includes the original woodcut illustrations of the 1539 Apiarius edition, a new bibliographical note and a select bibliography that brings research on this work up to date.

The second medieval text is a new verse translation, by Michael A.H. Newth, of The Song of Roland. Newth’s new edition — the first in fifty years to preserve the full poetic diction of the medieval composition — recaptures the form, feel and flow of the original work in performance by restoring the genre’s “verbal music” to the Song of Roland. This new translation will also soon be available in a performance edition and as a complete audio book from Audible.com and other audio-book distributors.

Our third medieval and Renaissance offering this season is a new dual-language edition of Torquato Tasso’s Love Poems for Lucrezia Bendidio, translated and edited by Max Wickert, whose English verse translation of Tasso’s The Liberation of Jerusalem has already become a critically acclaimed standard. This follows up on Italica’s verse translation of Tasso’s Aminta.

Finally, we also present the first English translation, by Martha King, of Gianna Manzini’s Full-Length Portrait  (Ritratto in piedi), the prize-winning best-seller by one of Italy’s most important literary voices. It follows Italica’s publication of King’s translation of Manzini’s Game Plan for a Novel (Lettera all’editore). 

All these works are available in hardcover, paperback and in Kindle editions at very reasonable prices through your local bookseller and online stores, including Amazon.com.

André's Life of Henry VII Published

We’re happy to announce that Daniel Hobbins’ translation of Bernard André’s The Life of Henry VII has now been published in both paperback and hardcover. The e-book edition will soon be available too.

Composed between 1500 and 1502, The Life of Henry VII is the first official Tudor account of the triumph of Henry VII over Richard III. Its author was a poet and historian at the court of Henry VII and tutor to the young Prince Arthur; and André’s account reflects the impact of new humanist models on English historiography.

Although cast as a biography, the work dramatizes the dynastic shift that resulted from Henry Tudor’s seizure of the English throne at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 and the death of Richard III. It is the first extended argument for Henry’s legitimate claims to the English crown.

The Life of Henry VII occupies an important place in the literary tradition of treatments of Richard III, begun by André, continued by Thomas More and Polydore Vergil, and reaching its classic expression in Shakespeare.

Dacia Maraini Nominated for Booker Prize

Readers of our fiction and poetry will be pleased to know that Italica Press author (and Italian novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright and poet), Dacia Maraini, has been nominated for the Man Booker International Prize 2011, the most prestigious literary award in the UK.

The International Prize is awarded for an author’s life work; and Italica Press has played some part in bringing this work to English-speaking audiences. Over the years we’ve published an English edition of her Donna in guerra (Woman at War, 1988), translated by Mara Benetti and Elspeth Spottiswood; her short story “Maria,” translated by Martha King in our anthology New Italian Women (edited by Martha King in 1989); and selections from her poetry in our anthology Contemporary Italian Women Poets, edited and translated by Cinzia Sartini Blum and Lara Trubowitz (2001).

We’ve long been impressed by Maraini’s clarity and strength, her superb style, and her wise engagement with issues of women’s voices and personal experiences. She has been a rare presence in Italian letters over the past generation and she richly deserves this nomination, the award, and further recognition of her work in the English-speaking world.