Description
Poetry. Translated from the Italian by John Taylor, this book represents a collection of three previously untranslated (into English) works of the contemporary Italian poet Franca Mancinelli. The book is set in a bilingual Italian / English format and includes an extensive introduction on Ms. Mancinelli's work to date by the translator, John Taylor who informs us: "Alongside new work, this volume collects Franca Mancinelli's first two books, Mala kruna (2007) and Pasta madre (2013), which established her as a captivating new voice to which one listens attentively." Both books have received much critical attention in Italy as well as several prizes, including, for the former collection, the Aquila First Book Award as well as the Giuseppe Giusti Prize; and for the latter volume, the Alpi Apuane, the Carducci, and the Ceppo-Giovani Prizes. The poet, has subsequently published Libretto di transito (2018), a collection of prose poems, also available in translation from The Bitter Oleander Press as THE LITTLE BOOK OF PASSAGE. Mancinelli's work represents "poetic research by one of the most original authors on the Italian scene," the poet and critic Carmen Gallo has observed. "[She] combines an extraordinary stylistic lucidity with a visionary gaze that dialectically questions reality, without transfiguring or overturning it, and meditates on its constantly moving forms, on its hidden tensions."
Author Bio
John Taylor was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1952. He has lived in France since 1977. Among his many translations of French, Italian and modern Greek literature are books by Philippe Jacottet, Jacques Dupin, Jose Flore Tappy, Pierre Voelin, Pierre Chappuis, Pierre-Albert Jourdan, Catherine Colomb, Lorenzo Calogero, Alfredo de Palchi, Elias Petropoulos and Elias Papadimitrakopoulos. For Black Square Editions he has translated Jacottet's PONGE, PASTURES PRAIRIES (2021). He is the author of several volume of short prose and poetry, most recently, THE DARK BRIGHTNESS (Xenos Books, 2017), Grassy Stairways (The Mad Hat Press, 2017), REMEMBRANCE OF WATER / TWENTY-FIVE TREES (The Bitter Oleander Press, 2018) and a double book co- authored with Swiss poet Pierre Chappuis, A Notebook of Clouds and A Notebook of Ridges (The Fortnightly Review Press, 2018). In 2020 Red Hen Press reprinted his first two books, The presence of Thing Past (Storyline Press, 1992), and Mysteries of the Body and the Mind (Storyline Press, 1998).
Author City: FRA
Mancinelli was born in Fano, Italy in 1981. Her first poetry collections, Mala Kenya (Manni, 2007) and Pasta Madre (Nino Aragno, 2013), were awarded several prizes in Italy and published together in John Taylor's translation, AT AN HOUR'S SLEEP FROM HERE, (The Bitter Oleander Press, 2019). The Italian original of All The Eyes I Have Opened (Marcos y Marcos, 2020), has won two national prizes: The Europe in Verdi Prize and the San Vito al Tagliamento Prize. Mancinelli was selected for the ongoing European poetry project "Versopolis", was Chair Poet in Residence (Calcutta, India) in Jan-Feb, 2019. She participated in the European program "Refest: Images and Words on Refugee Routes" in Feb. 2018. From this letter, she wrote Taccuino Croatian (Croatian Notebook), now published in Come tradure la neve (How to translate the snow, AnimaMundi, 2019).
Author City: FANO ITA