The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea

The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea
Author: Amara Lakhous
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609453190

A fun and farcical novel, this new "whodunit" about life in multicultural Italy by Amara Lakhous will delight fans of Lakhous' earlier bestseller, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, and readers of novels such as The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. Bittersweet, like any self-respecting Italian comedy, The Prank is a Pirandellian exploration of identity in today's multicultural, polyglot societies. Lakhous draws inspiration from everyday reality, describing his approach to writing as "total literature," a term he has adapted from soccer's "total football." He plays in attack, describing in this work the realities of an Italy of the future with colorful characters portrayed in limpid but lively prose. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea

The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea
Author: Amara Lakhous
Publisher:
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2016
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A fun and farcical novel, this new "whodunit" about life in multicultural Italy by Amara Lakhous will delight fans of Lakhous' earlier bestseller, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, and readers of novels such as The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. Bittersweet, like any self-respecting Italian comedy, The Prank is a Pirandellian exploration of identity in today's multicultural, polyglot societies. Lakhous draws inspiration from everyday reality, describing his approach to writing as "total literature," a term he has adapted from soccer's "total football." He plays in attack, describing in this work the realities of an Italy of the future with colorful characters portrayed in limpid but lively prose.

Managing Pandemic Isolation With Literature as Therapy

Managing Pandemic Isolation With Literature as Therapy
Author: Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2022-12-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1668447371

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had to cope with isolation due to lockdown policies that forced them to engage in fewer social activities. People were confined to the small space of their dwellings and felt constrained and socially isolated and deprived of meaningful social interaction and affection, which caused stress and anxiety. Several initiatives were put in place to help diminish the effects of isolation, such as those involving literature either through writing or reading. Managing Pandemic Isolation With Literature as Therapy explains the positive medical and psychological effects of literature and writing during a pandemic at a time when isolation prevented people from engaging with others socially. Covering topics such as clinical psychology, brain neurology, and stress, this reference work is ideal for psychologists, medical professionals, policymakers, government officials, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
Author: Amara Lakhous
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 107
Release: 2008-09-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609450434

The immigrant tenants of a building in Rome offer skewed accounts of a murder in this prize-winning satire by the Algerian-born Italian author (Publishers Weekly). Piazza Vittorio is home to a polyglot community of immigrants who have come to Rome from all over the world. But when a tenant is murdered in the building’s elevator, the delicate balance is thrown into disarray. As each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned by the police, readers are offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. With language as colorful as the neighborhood it describes, each character takes his or her turn “giving evidence.” Their various stories reveal much about the drama of racial identity and the anxieties of a life spent on society’s margins, but also bring to life the hilarious imbroglios of this melting pot Italian culture. “Their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot.” —Publishers Weekly

Contemporary Italian Diversity in Critical and Fictional Narratives

Contemporary Italian Diversity in Critical and Fictional Narratives
Author: Marie Orton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2021-10-26
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 168393315X

Contemporary Italian Diversity in Critical and Fictional Narratives brings together creative literary works and scholarly articles. Both address the changes and challenges to identity formation in an Italy marked by the migrations, populism, nationalism, and xenophobia, and analyze diversity and the affirmation of belonging.

Interrupted Narratives and Intersectional Representations in Italian Postcolonial Literature

Interrupted Narratives and Intersectional Representations in Italian Postcolonial Literature
Author: Caterina Romeo
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2023-01-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3031100433

This book argues for the importance of adopting a postcolonial perspective in analysing contemporary Italian culture and literature. Originally published in Italian in 2018 as Riscrivere la nazione: La letteratura italiana postcoloniale, this new English translation brings to light the connections between the present, the colonial past and the great historical waves of international and intranational migration. By doing so, the book shows how a sense of Italian national identity emerged, at least in part, as the result of different migrations and why there is such a strong resistance in Italy to extending the privilege of italianità, or Italianness, to those who have arrived on Italian soil in recent years. Exploring over 100 texts written by migrant and second-generation writers, the book takes an intersectional approach to understanding gender and race in Italian identity. It connects these literary and cultural contexts to the Italian colonial past, while also looking outwards to a more diffuse postcolonial condition in Europe.

Italian Literature since 1900 in English Translation 1929-2016

Italian Literature since 1900 in English Translation 1929-2016
Author: Robin Healey
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 1104
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1487502923

Providing the most complete record possible of texts by Italian writers active after 1900, this annotated bibliography covers over 4,800 distinct editions of writings by some 1,700 Italian authors. Many entries are accompanied by useful notes that provide information on the authors, works, translators, and the reception of the translations. This book includes the works of Pirandello, Calvino, Eco, and more recently, Andrea Camilleri and Valerio Manfredi. Together with Robin Healey's Italian Literature before 1900 in English Translation, also published by University of Toronto Press in 2011, this volume makes comprehensive information on translations from Italian accessible for schools, libraries, and those interested in comparative literature.

A Companion to Federico Fellini

A Companion to Federico Fellini
Author: Frank Burke
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2020-05-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1119431530

A groundbreaking academic treatment of Fellini, provides new, expansive, and diverse perspectives on his films and influence The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Federico Fellini presents new methodologies and fresh insights for encountering, appreciating, and contextualizing the director’s films in the 21st century. A milestone in Fellini scholarship, this volume provides contributions by leading scholars, intellectuals, and filmmakers, as well as insights from collaborators and associates of the Italian director. Scholarly yet readable essays explore the fundamental aspects of Fellini’s works while addressing their contemporary relevance in contexts ranging from politics and the environment to gender, race, and sexual orientation. As the centennial of Federico Fellini’s birth in approaches in 2020, this timely work provides new readings of Fellini’s films and illustrates Fellini’s importance as a filmmaker, artist,and major cultural figure. The text explores topics such as Fellini’s early cinematic experience, recurring themes and patterns in his films, his collaborations and influences, and his unique forms of cinematic expression. In a series of “Short Takes” sections, contributors look at specific films that have particular significance or personal relevance. Destined to become the standard research tool for Fellini studies, this volume: Offers new theoretical frameworks, encounters, critiques, and interpretations of Fellini’s work Discusses Fellini’s creativity outside of filmmaking, such as his graphic art and his Book of Dreams published after his death. Examines Fellini’s influence on artists not only in the English-speaking world but in places such as Turkey, Japan, South Asia, Russia, Cuba, North Africa. Demonstrates the interrelationship between Fellini’s work and visual art, literature, fashion, marketing, and many other dimensions of both popular and high culture. Features personal testimonies from family, friends and associates of Fellini such as Francesca Fabbri Fellini, Gianfranco Angelucci, Valeria Ciangottini, and Lina Wertmüller Includes an extensive appendix of freely accessible archival resources on Fellini’s work The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Federico Fellini is an indispensable resource for students, instructors, and scholars of Fellini, Italian cinema, cinema and art history, and all areas of film and media studies.

Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet

Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet
Author: Amara Lakhous
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609451953

An Italian journalist gets wrapped up in the criminality and cultural controversies of modern Turin in this “very funny” satirical novel (The New York Times). It’s October 2006. The northern Italian town of Turin has been rocked by a series of murders involving Albanians and Romanians, and journalist Enzo Laganà is determined to get to the bottom of the crime wave—even if he must invent a few sources to do so. But first he’s been conscripted to mediate the issue of a pig running loose in a mosque. Gino the pig belongs to Enzo’s Nigerian immigrant neighbor, Joseph. The Muslim community wants Gino killed, an animal rights group wants him saved, and Joseph is pleading his pig’s innocence. As Enzo navigates various calamities large and small, he scrambles to keep track of his lies even as he uncovers some uncomfortable truths about contemporary, multicultural Italy. “This very funny novel examines a town’s heightened ignorance and hostility toward foreigners, and what it means to be a “true” Italian, even if the native in question is a small pig.” —The New York Times

Divorce Islamic Style

Divorce Islamic Style
Author: Amara Lakhous
Publisher: Europa Editions UK
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2012-04-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1787701247

It's 2005. The Italian secret service has received intel that a group of Muslim immigrants based in Rome's Viale Marconi neighborhood is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian court translator who speaks perfect Arabic, goes undercover to infiltrate the group and learn who its leaders are. Christian poses as Issa, a recently arrived Tunisian in search of looking for a place to sleep and a job. He soon meets Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant whose life with her husband, Said a.k.a. Felice, an architect who has reinvented himself as a pizza cook, is anything but fulfilling. In alternating voices, with an anthropologist's keen eye and sparkling wit Lakhous examines the commonplaces and stereotypes typical of life in multicultural societies. Divorce Islamic Style mixes the rational and the absurd as it describes the conflicts and contradictions of today's world. Marvelous set pieces, episodes rich in pathos, brilliant dialogue, and mordant folk proverbs combine as the novel moves towards an unforgettable and surprising finale that will have readers turning back to the first page of Lakhous's stunning novel to begin the ride all over again.