Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
nottetempo srlpiazza Farnese, 44 - 00186 Roma
tel.+39.06.68308320www.edizioninottetempo.it
Paolo Colagrande
Listen to the frogs(Senti le rane)
Sitting at a café table, Gerasim tells Sogliani the story of a third friend, sitting nearby. It is an extremely adventurous story. Zuckermann, a Jew converted to Catholicism following a celestial call, take his vows and becomes “the handsome priest” of a small town on the coast of Romagna. He is seen as a saint by the faithful inhabitants and tourists, brilliant in his sermons, brisk and innocent. But while rumors of miracles begin to cluster around his name, one late summer afternoon Zuckermann meets Romana, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a couple of parishioners. The priest falls madly in love with her. After the initial hesitations and some pale efforts of penitence, the passion quickly spreads through the young bodies and with it the jealousy towards other admires of the girl: soon the whole community finds itself embroiled in a sentimental tragedy, which ends on the bank of a stream with a singing frog... With his dense and amused writing, Colagrande tells a story through the voice of two perfectly unreliable witnesses.
February 2015fiction
336 pages
Paolo Colagrande (Piacenza, 1960) is a writer and lawyer. With Fìdeg, his debut novel, he wins the 2007 Premio Campiello Opera Prima. He has also published Kammerspiel (2008) and Dioblù (2010)
nottetempo new titles
Antonella Moscati
A house(Una casa)
At the centre of this story is the author’s old family home in Faiano, near Salerno. The house and its stories, the smells, the names of the rooms, the hazelnuts and tobacco leaves left to dry, the fruit garden bordering the fields, the plane tree peeping through the window, the pergola, the bicycle, the madness besieging the family, the landing of the Allies in Salerno, the mozzarella, the fresh eggs to drink. Around the house revolve: the grandfather, the undisputed master whom everyone calls Signore (Sir); Liciuzza, “whose imagination was as lazy as her body”; Zia Renata, perpetually in love with a British officer; Raffelina or Antonietta who worked in the kitchen; Clotilde and Elvira, the crazy aunts; and then cousins , children and labourers. With mild irony the narrator looks at the situation like a painter hidden among the group and tells the story of a carefree age filled with games and accidents, until the death of the grandfather marks the end of a world, the division of the house and the beginning of adulthood.
March 2015fiction
132 pages
Antonella Moscati was born in Naples and lives near Siena. She is a writer and a phi-losophy scholar. With nottetempo she published Una quasi eternità (2006) and Deliri (2009). Her works have been translated in several languages.
nottetempo new titles
Riccardo Corsi
Dragons(Draghi)
These stories are populated by famous and less famous dragons: Saint George’s dragon, that flung the saint into the mud with a flick of its tail; the one that took refuge in the statue of Giordano Bruno in Rome; the one that taught Adam and Eve the language of the world. But not all of Corsi’s Dragons are mythological animals. Sometimes they are insights, fires in the night, or clearings which open up unexpectedly. Some fly like dragons, others simply exist like objects, others are ready to turn into ashes, like the embers of a cigarette. The last dragon is a sequence, a serpent of fragments, cherries, leftovers. The last is the tail of the dragon, with which the author accompanies the reader to a meadow where, as he himself writes, we can meet anything - because “meadows are full of opportunities”. Here we linger, fascinated and lost, like children in fairy tales.
April 2015fiction
70 pages
Riccardo Corsi (1967) teaches Italian to foreigners and works with refugees seeking political asylum. He published a collection of short stories, The syllabic blood Il sillabico sangue (2009), and a novel in fragments and images, Symbolic Crossroads Incroci simbolici (2012), the first part of the Book of the wind Libro del vento. He is one of the founders of the independent publishing house Portatori d’acqua.
nottetempo new titles
Giorgio Agamben
The adventure(L’avventura)
An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love and Need as the four gods who preside over the birth of every man. Sooner or later we all need to deal with them. But to face these simultaneously obscure and positive deities means – as Agamben suggests in this new, surprising book – to live one’s life as an adventure. And not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but considering adventure as the most profound experience in our human existence, of which Demon, Chance, Love and Need are but mere masks. Through a fascinating itinerary that unfolds from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Lancelot to Beatrice, these four deities are ultimately joined by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope, who in Greek mythology remains closed in Pandora’s jar whereas it is here presented as the ultimate symbol of the human adventure on Earth.
May 2015non-fiction
80 pages
Giorgio Agamben is a philosopher. His wide body of work has been translated worl-dwide. His recent works include Homo Sacer (Einaudi, 1995), Stato di eccezione (Bol-lati, 2003), Il sacramento del linguaggio (Laterza, 2008). Other titles with nottetempo: Profanazioni (2005), Che cos’è un dispositivo? (2006), L’amico (2007), La chiesa e il regno (in 2010).
nottetempo new titles
Goffredo Fofi
A praise for civil disobedience(Elogio della disobbedienza civile)
Since Thoreau refused to pay a tax imposed by the U.S. government to fund the war against Spain, and accepted the prison sentence resulting from his action, “civil disobedience” has become a system of protest. There had been many precedents, such as Antigone, but Thoreau was the one who clarified this approach in modern terms, as well as its relevance and necessity. His short essay was studied by Tolstoy and Gandhi, who put it into practice on a large scale to successfully fight British colonialism. With the failure of the revolutions that have focused on producing new violence and oppression, with the assertion – in the so-called democratic world - of a financial power that is now challenged by various forms of fundamentalism or Mafia, and with the new winds of war blowing on the planet, civil disobedience goes back to being the wisest and most radical answer to the direct and indirect violence of those who decide and control, who manipulate and offend. Describing the forms of civil disobedience developed in the past by the labour and the nonviolent movements, the author insists on a fundamental concept: civil disobedience can do without nonviolence, but nonviolence can not exist without its fundamental political component: civil disobedience.
April 2015non-fiction
70 pages
Goffredo Fofi (1973)is an essayist, activist, journalist and critic. He writes on cinema, literature and theatre.
nottetempo new titles
Adrián N. Bravi
The tree and the cow(L’albero e la vacca)
“A clear and simple voice, able to innervate complex subjects such as death, the struggle of growing, the derailment of lives that seem to be born under a bad sign.” Cristina Taglietti, Corriere della Sera
“The freshness and painful humour of the great South Americans (…) Bravi’s writing is ductile, visual, euphoric and brilliantly chiselled.” Brunella Schisa, Il Venerdì di Repubblica
“A curious and poetic book (...) a “Baron in the Trees” by Calvino, updated to the times of unstable families.” Paolo di Paolo, il Messaggero
L’albero e la vacca, the latest novel by Adrián N. Bravi, tells the story of Adamo, who watches his parents’ separation from up in a tree. Perched on the branch of the yew after eating its very poisonous berries, Adamo sees a placid cow appear before his eyes. This vision protects him from the discovery that adults are made of different stuff to children, and can imagine separations, divisions and neglect that children would never dream of. The berries from the public gardens of Recanati turn Adamo into a seer who tells others that nothing is really true. In his comic and visionary prose, Adrián N. Bravi turns everyday occurrences into a fantastic adventure, and the opposite sometimes as well.
2013fiction
160 pagesin coproduction with
Feltrinelli
Adrián N. Bravi (1963) was born in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, and lives in Italy, whe-re he works as a librarian. His latest novels all published by nottetempo are La pelusa (2007), Sud 1982 (2008) and Il riporto (2010).
nottetempo selected backlist
Rights sold to:Edhasa (world Spanish)
Milena Agus andLuciana Castellina
Beware of my hunger(Guardati dalla mia fame)
«An intimate and epic story, with an amazing pace.» Il Venerdì di Repubblica
«A remarkable book, with two voices and two styles, narrative and non-fictional... It is worth referring back to the words of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “Watch yourself... / Watch yourself / From my hunger / And my anger.”» Il manifesto
«Agus and Castellina have developed a writing that is clear, simple, effective, yet also enveloping.». La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno
«The hidden and ancient story of a forgotten civil war.»Il Foglio
In Andria, on March 6, 1946, the politician and unionist Giuseppe Di Vittorio holds a congress. On that occasion the small town in Puglia becomes the scene of a dreadful crime: two women belonging to the local aristocracy are killed by rabidly desperate labourers. Milena Agus and Luciana Castellina tell the facts, each with their own passion and reason.Milena Agus recreates the palace of the wealthy unmarried Porro sisters with her dazzling and loving imagination. On the other side, Luciana Castellina tells the story and the circumstances that turned a group of labourers and their wives into ferocious killers. One on the inside and the other on the outside, the palace and the square, two worlds that don’t know each other and that explode once they come into contact.
2014fiction
190 pages
Milena Agus lives in Cagliari where she teaches Italian. The author of the internation bestseller Mal di pietre, Agus is the recipient of several literary awards. Her works have been translated into over thirty languages.
Luciana Castellina has been a leading figure of the Italian Left since the 1960s and a member of the Euro-pean parliament for twenty years. Her novel La scoperta del mondo, shortlisted for the Strega Award, has been translated in several languages (Nottetempo 2011).
Rights sold to:Liana Levi (France)
Prix Méditerranée Etranger 2015
nottetempo selected backlist
Mila Venturini
Love is not worthwile(L’amore non conviene)
“The author fully reaffirms herself with a light and breezy comedy that could replicate D’Avenia’s success among younger generations, while - as in his case - also pleasing more mature readers.” Cristina De Stefano, Elle
“The author gives us moments of serenity and healthy grace. A book that praises normality and daily life. A story that propels us into a pastel-coloured world.” Il Tempo
“Agile dialogues and a good fairy-tale.” Pagina99
“A lovely novel to discover that it is always worth loving.” Tu Style
Serpieri is disappointed in love. His marriage has failed leaving a deep mark in him. He is also a philosophy teacher at a high school, and – inspired by his personal ethical position – he offers his pupils a new program for the year, titled “The hazardous effects of love on younger generations”. The students are initially puzzled but they soon grow enthusiastic. There are few rules, but all have been certified by the personal experience of the professor. He teaches them how to avoid looking into the eyes of the person that they find interesting, and how to tactfully spray them with pigeon repellent. Pupils practice with zeal and begin to put his teachings into practice, yet the question still remains open: is it really true that “love is not worthwhile”? From Mila Venturini a fun new novel about love and its dangers.
2014fiction
248 pages
Mila Venturini, lives in Rome where she works as a script writer and conducts creative writing workshops for children. For nottetempo she has published Two of everything and a suitcase (2010) and Love is not worthwile (2014). For Biancoenero she has published the children’s mystery novel Detective al mare.
nottetempo selected backlist
Daniele Giglioli
Critics of the victim. An experiment with ethics(Critica della vittima. Un esperimento con l’etica)
«The victim is the hero of our time. Being a victim gives us a status. It forces other people to listen to us. It encourages and supports recognition while powerfully generating a sense of identity, justice and self-esteem. It immunizes from criticism, guarantees innocence beyond any reasonable doubt. How could the victim be guilty, and indeed responsible for something? S/he does not play, s/he is played. S/he does not act, s/he suffers. The victim lives with a sense of absence and request, weakness and claim, and with the desire to have and to be. We are not defined by our actions, but by what we have suffered, by what we could lose, and by that which others have taken from us.»
How can a victim generate leadership and proselytes just as a religion does? And how can it encompass at the same time the feeling of shame and pride? From politics to society, from history to literature, from law to psychology, Giglioli analyzes the symptoms of the contemporary victim. Among its expressions: the obsessive celebration of memory; the humanitarian belief that “keeps the defenceless unarmed” and “leaves intact the arsenals of the powerful”; the capitalist claim for the right to well-being that turns into frustration and inadequacy; the contemporary mythology of the “conspiracy”. In all these cases the liability of evil is elsewhere, outside of us. In a sharp and clear essay, the author investigates the origins of the ideology of the victim and the established strategy of today’s lamentation that divides society into guilty and innocent. Ultimately, Giglioli highlights the crisis of “a form of life” – our form of life.
2014non-fiction124 pages
Daniele Giglioli is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bergamo. He collaborates with the newspaper Corriere della Sera. He has published, among other works, Tema (La nuova Italia, 2001), Il pedagogo e il libertino (Bergamo University Press, 2002), All’ordine del giorno è il terrore (Bompiani, 2007), Senza trauma (Quodli-bet, 2011).
Rights sold to:Matthes & Seitz (Germany)
nottetempo selected backlist
Furio Jesi
Feast time(Il tempo della festa)
“Furio Jesi always manages to stamp out the barriers between the categories on which the fragile certainties of Italian ideology had been based: rationalism/ irrationalism; myth/history; laicism/reliousness; left/ right; militant criticism/academia”. Giorgio Agamben
“An essential collection”. Marco Dotti
“The finest words Jesi has ever penned”. Marco Filoni
A rare and brilliant figure with the ability to diversify from anthropology, mythology, philosophy and literary criticism, Furio Jesi was one of the great Italian masters of 20th century essay writing. The book comprises some of his masterpieces: the first time he defines his famous interpretation of the “mythological machine”, his reflections on feast time and mythological time, or his examination of the poetics of Rimbaud and Pavese. Alternatively, in a strongly autobiographical text, we are invited into and guided through the most secret and intriguing rooms of his personal workshop.Il tempo della festa is also a sort of manifesto of political and cultural resistance: in the sombre climate of modern-day Italy, Jesi’s intelligence proves to be both a weapon and an example of happiness.
Edited by Andrea Cavalletti.
2013non-fiction236 pages
Furio Jesi (1941-1980) was an anthropologist, historian of religions, Germanist and a my-thologist. Shifting skilfully through the various disciplines he produced ground-breaking interpretations on the myth. His books include: Letteratura e mito (1968), Il mito (1973), Spartakus (2000).
Rights sold to:Seagull (UK/USA)
nottetempo selected backlist
