‘Piedi scalzi’

First published in Incontri d’amore (Bompiani, 1940). Later published as part of the collection Settantacinque racconti (Bompiani, 1955).

Notes

THE SIREN

1. William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act I, scene 2.

2. William Shakespeare, The Sonnets, 119.

3. The Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (National Recreational Club) was the Italian Fascist leisure and recreational organization.

THE TOWER

1. RAI3: RAI stands for ‘Radiotelevisione italiana’, which, until 1954, was called ‘Radio Audizioni Italiane’. It is Italy’s public broadcasting company. RAI3, among the principal RAI channels, was controlled by the Italian Communist Party and dedicated largely to cultural programming. It retains a left-leaning audience.

2. San Francesco from the 1930s: San Francesco (Saint Francis), declared the patron saint of Italy by Pope Pius XII in 1939, was appropriated by Mussolini as a nationalist symbol. The Duce declared him ‘the most Italian of saints and the most saintly of all Italians’, and linked his evangelical missions in Palestine and Egypt to the Fascist regime’s colonialist aggression.

3. The festival for l’Unità: The l’Unità Festival was launched by the Italian Communist Party in 1945 to foster Communist identity and raise funds for l’Unità, Italy’s official Communist newspaper, founded by Antonio Gramsci in 1924. Italo Calvino, Cesare Pavese, Antonio Tabucchi and Elio Vittorini were among the writers in this anthology who wrote for l’Unità. Since the dissolution of the Italian Communist Party in 1991, the festival has continued under successor left-wing parties and coalitions. As of 2017, l’Unità has ceased publication, but l’Unità festivals are still held in numerous cities in Italy.

4. Emmanuelle: Emanuelle was an erotic French film released in 1974, based on the novel of the same name by Emmanuelle Arsan. Its protagonist was a French diplomat’s wife travelling to Thailand to meet her husband.

Goffredo Parise – Biographical note

1. From the Avvertenza (author’s note) of the 1984 complete edition of the Sillabari. The original Italian reads: ‘Ma all lettera S, nonostante i programmi, la poesia mi ha abbandonato.’

Anna Maria Ortese – Biographical note

1. From Ortese’s introduction to the 1994 edition of Il mare non bagna Napoli.

A MARTIAN IN ROME

1. The language used in this short story by Flaiano presents a variety of challenges, including a couple of expressions that cannot be precisely translated into English. The author’s use of Italian is specific to the 1950s, and, in some cases, unique to the city of Rome and its inhabitants. The text is riddled with formal, journalistic language, which is in direct contrast with the fantastic, ironic and at times ridiculous nature of the plotline. One of the expressions that cannot be properly rendered in English is a play on words, not entirely dissimilar to the phrase ‘Rome or bust’. When he describes a satirical drawing by Mino Maccari, Flaiano references the exclamation ‘O Roma o Marte!’ [‘Rome or Mars!’], an allusion to Garibaldi’s historical battle cry ‘O Roma o Morte!’ [‘Rome or Death!’].

Another aspect of the Italian language that is difficult to translate is the degree of formality implied in conversation by addressing an interlocutor in the third person, without having to resort to words like ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’. Since it is customary to address strangers formally in Italy, the choice not to do so is inherently informal, familiar and possibly disrespectful. The decision to address someone in dialect or standard Italian also carries similar weight. Standard language would normally be used in school, in the professional world, and when dealing with figures of authority. It can denote a certain distance, but also respect and consideration for the listener, since he or she may not even completely understand the dialect in question. Hence, when photographers shout at the Martian to get him to move out of the way, they are being rude for more than one reason. The forceful request ‘A Marzià, te scansi?’ is only truly clear to those who have at least a small understanding of the dialect known as Romanesco. To render the tone of derision and disdain in the original text, it was necessary to add an element of vulgarity, producing the following question: ‘Hey, Mr Mars, will you move your ass?’