Saturday, March 23, 2013

Update


The International Authors website has been updated to show Dario Rivarossa's new book, Dante was a Fantasy Writer. Click here to see the new description.


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Art of the Sales Link

For the consideration of Highbrow readers, here I have arrayed a sample of the various sales links available to small presses wishing to channel sales traffic to Amazon, the internet retailer.  For the purposes of demonstration, I am using International Author's most recent publication, Dante was a Fantasy Writer by Dario Rivarossa. The links not only display sales information and provide a connection to the relevant sales page, but they are also coded in such a way that the owner of the link receives a small percentage of the sale.



Dante was a Fantasy Writer


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Il traduttore del mese

The international translation agency Studio Kosmos has recently named Dante Was  Fantasy Writer author Dario Rivarossa "Il traduttore del mese" (Translator of the Month).

Taken form the Studio Kosmos blog (which is in Italian), here is a translation of Dario's statement regarding the art of translation:

Translator (why otherwise would I be here? By the way, thanks to Daniela Fava [the Kosmos boss] and hello to readers), blogger (like everybody ...), writer (a late but quite successful one: the book Dante was a Fantasy Writer, recently released, has already been published also in America), journalist (with a glorious future behind), lecturer (much appreciated), illustrator (but not a prophet in his homeland, because my publishers and collectors are all in the U.S.). I try to deal with serious topics as science-fictionally as possible.

In addition to Kosmos, where I work out the Italian version of specialist articles, novels and websites, my main task consists in the translation of sci-fi novels for the classic series "Urania", with a slew of titles made in a few years.

Moreover, in these last two years, and again for at least a year, I was absorbed almost 100% in the pool of translators who takes care of the international project "The Complete Works of Raimon Panikkar," an Indo-Spanish thinker.

In my opinion, the first requirement to translate well from English is to know Italian and enrich the nuances of words, so I cultivate a series of mental gymnastics:

- Sit-com conversations with my sweet wife;
- Epic, philosophical, experimental poetry, such as Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Milton;
- The lucid, witty, evocative art of Hokusai and Surrealism;
- The alternative science, from "what-ifs" to the most funny theories;
- The cosmic philosophy of Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Nietzsche;
- All, in the balance between the Piedmontese ironic Guido Gozzano and English epic Beowulf


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Dante was a Fantasy Writer: Vampires, Werewolves, Elves, Dragons, and Other Little Things Obvious to Medieval Readers

On behalf of International Authors in association with GuardaStelle Edizioni, Italy, I am happy to announce the publication of Dante was a Fantasy Writer by Dario Rivarossa.   



The word “Middle Ages” evokes fairies, elves, dragons, witches, magical enchantments, the mysteries of the Knights Templar, and popular events such as Palios, rides, and tournaments. Did all of these things already “exist” in the Middle Ages narrated by Dante, or are they just modern fantasies? And if Dante talks about such wonders, where does he? And how?

 On a quest to answer such questions, Dario Rivarossa leads the reader on a journey through the “open secrets” of the poem par excellence of Italian literature. Here is an original and unusual essay, capturing many aspects of The Divine Comedy that remain hidden to modern readers. Conveyed in a humorous and engaging style, the study is notable for rigorous scholarship and insightful critical observations. It is a wonderfully engaging book for both students of Dante and the non-expert audience. 

The book features 100 color drawings — as many as the Cantos in The Divine Comedy — prepared by the author.

Dario Rivarossa was born in 1969 in Savigliano, Italy, hometown of the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. He currently lives in Perugia, internationally known for the Renaissance painter “Perugino” (Pietro Vannucci), who was considered the greatest artist ever, at least until eclipsed by Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. He is a translator (English, German, Classical Languages to Italian), essayist, journalist, lecturer (especially for the Dante Alighieri Society), and illustrator. Two series of his illustrations based on Milton’s Paradise Lost belong to prestigious collections in the United States. His experimental Miltonian haiku PL 575 have been published in the anthology Emanations: Second Sight, also published by International Authors. Happily married to Paola. Website.

To visit the Amazon sales page, click here.
© Copyright 2013 by GuardaStelle Edizioni
Original title: Dante era uno scrittore Fantasy

Monday, March 11, 2013

profound insight? courageous speculation? one thing's for sure, this "nota bene" and $1.65 will buy you a cup of coffee


In Space: Consciousness!

Gaze long into the stars
Across the steep fields above
Scan those points amidst 
Deeps of far and empty darkness
Where is consciousness?
Where out there are they?
The Pleiades, where bright
Lights reside, and they are here

Friday, March 8, 2013

angles and lines against depthless parchment background


Dream of Structure, Mechanics, Vague Emotion

I woke from a dream of no ordinary
Finely-configured craft of the air
Erstwhile biplanes, drawn extensions
Fashioned from lines and surfaces
Exotic machines with men in them
Five engines, say, arrayed around
The front of one such machine
Each propeller whirring in precessing
Phase with all the others
A rotating wave rotating as
The propellers rotated, and another
Was long and sufficient, moving deftly
As a slender dragonfly, another
Box-like, light on the air and pivoting
They were shooting at each other
Altogether at peace, wanting meaning
Intentions with nothing to resolve

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

a poem of some sort

                   
                          Sunset Walk

As the sun sets over the frozen lake, it’s time to walk
Bundled up against the cold, muffled, wool socks, etc.
Gloved hands holding as we walk up the road and back, talk softly,
Talk wisely, talk about money, maybe talk about old times
But when the clear-focused stars of winter wink into being
We’ll take off our gloves and wait
And feel with numbing hands what’s really out there

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Gravitationally lensed quasar HE 1104-1805

This picture shows a quasar that has been gravitationally lensed by a galaxy in the foreground, which can be seen as a faint shape around the two bright images of the quasar.

Observations of one of the images show variations in colour over time. This is caused by stars within the lens galaxy passing through the path of the light from the quasar, magnifying the light from different parts of the quasar’s accretion disc as they move. This has allowed a team of scientists to reconstruct the colour and temperature profile of the accretion disc with unprecedented precision. The level of detail involved is equivalent to being able to study individual grains of sand on the surface of the Moon while standing on Earth.
 Source.