Thanks to my Italian publisher at Guanda, Luigi Brioschi, for our many conversations about this project; Laura Bosio, my gifted editor, who kindly reviewed my work, this time in English; Cinzia Cappelli, for her helpful suggestions; Claudine Turla for her rigorous research. My agents: Eric Simonoff in New York; Fiona Baird, Raffaella De Angelis and Matilda Forbes Watson in London, Giulia Pietrosanti in Rome.

At Penguin Classics, I wish to thank Josephine Greywoode for inviting me to take on this project, for setting the parameters, and for steering the helm; Bianca Bexton and Ruth Pietroni for expeditiously overseeing the production; Louisa Watson for her heroic and painstaking copy-editing.

Thanks to the Centro Studi Americani in Rome and to Libreria Minimum Fax, my neighbourhood bookstore in Trastevere, for wonderful suggestions and for special-ordering innumerable titles and holding them for me, behind the cash register, sometimes for months at a time, always trusting that I would pass by to retrieve them.

I am also profoundly grateful to Firestone Library at Princeton, which houses nearly every Italian book I needed, and where I discovered a wealth of material that was out of print, including previously published anthologies, in both English and Italian, which paved the way for this one. If it is translation that allows the reader to cross linguistic borders, great libraries are what house those efforts, safeguard them in spite of neglect, collapse space and time for those who explore their depths and make a voyage like this one possible.

Finally, thanks to my son and daughter, Octavio and Noor Vourvoulias, for bravely crossing borders throughout their growing lives.

The following sources proved especially helpful:

Giulio Ferroni (ed.), Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. 4: Il novecento. Torino: Einaudi, 1991.

Enzo Ronconi (ed.), Dizionario della letteratura italiana contemporanea, vol. 1: Movimenti letterari-Scrittori. Firenze: Vallecchi, 1973.

Enzo Siciliano (ed.), Racconti italiani del novecento, with an introductory essay by Enzo Siciliano and bibliographic notes on the authors by Luca Baranelli. 3 volumes. Milano: Mondadori, i Meridiani 2001.

Copyright Information

Corrado Alvaro

‘Piedi scalzi’ from Opere, vol. II. Romanzi brevi e racconti. Edited and introduced by Geno Pampaloni (Milano: Bompiani, 2018). Published by arrangement with Giunti Editore S.p.A. Translation © Jhumpa Lahiri, 2019

Giovanni Arpino

‘La babbuina’ from Opere scelte. Edited and introduced by Ronaldo Damiani (Milano: Mondadori, i Meridiani, 2009). Copyright © 2015 Mondadori Libri S.p.A., Milano. Translation © Howard Curtis, 2019

Anna Banti

‘La signorina’ from Romanzi e racconti. Edited and introduced by Fausta Garavini, with the collaboration of Laura Desideri (Milano: Mondadori, i Meridiani, 2013). By permission of Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence. Translation © Jenny McPhee, 2019

Luciano Bianciardi

‘Il peripatetico’ from Il cattivo profeta. Edited by Luciana Bianciardi (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 2018). Copyright © Estate of Luciano Bianciardi. Translation and notes © Ann Goldstein, 2019

Romano Bilenchi

‘Un errore geografico’ from Opere complete. Edited and introduced by Benedetta Centovalli (Milano: BUR Rizzoli, 2009). Translation © Lawrence Venuti, 2003

Massimo Bontempelli

‘La spiaggia miracolosa ovvero Premio della modestia (Aminta)’ from Opere scelte. Edited by Luigi Baldacci (Milano: Mondadori, i Meridiani, 2004). Copyright © Alvise Memmo Estate of Massimo Bontempelli, 1938. Translation and notes © Jenny McPhee, 2019