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

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

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

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

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

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.

New novel coming soon...

On behalf of International Authors, I am happy to announce the forthcoming publication of Reclamation by Elkie Riches.

Cover art by Kai Robb

She takes the hand and rises slowly to her feet, adjusting, as she stands, the armoured obi around her waist that bears the emblem of the Shaman Division—an eye with a leaf for a pupil. Their motto, written in greenish copper, curves above: Mysterium Tremendum.

                                                               -- from the novel

Watch this space....

International Authors on the road and through the air: Boston, Paris, New York

Travel plans are coming together. International Authors will have a table this year at the American Literature Association 24th Annual Conference at the Weston Copley Place Hotel in Boston, May 23-26. Then the following week, members of the International Authors Editorial Board will meet at an undisclosed location in Paris to discuss writing, art, and various issues of micro- and macrocosmic importance. In addition to the meeting, we are exploring the possibility of gathering on the steps of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur to read poetry, catch falling angels, and foretell of times to come. Later in the summer there will be a celebration of the publication of Emanations: Third Eye in New York at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center.





Radiant Time: An Interview with Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock

" I’ve recently come up with the fun notion of “Radiant Time” as an image to suggest a universe of limitless possibilities — the human brain, in fact — situationalist strategies for the 21st century — a means of understanding the modern psyche and society. It’s balanced by the notion of Linear Time and its proponents. Pretty evident where my sympathies lie, of course! Space is a dimension of Time!"

Jerome Winter interviews Michael Moorcock in the LA Times.     
 Click here.

The Slings and Arrows of Publishing the Outrageous

In the following snippet of International Authors "backchannel" communication, surrealist Terrance Lindall reports on his frustrations as he seeks a publisher for the illustrated version of Horace Jeffery Hodges' Bottomless Bottle of Beer, and offers some interesting observations of the process he followed as he began his career as an illustrator.

Jungle Drums in Publishing

So, after a few skirmishes into the tangled publishing jungle, we have learned a couple of things. One is that it is not easy to find a publisher or agent, even if you have a well-respected illustrator who knows a few people in the industry. Why?

First, there are 7 billion people in the world. Many aspire to be writers or artists. The competition is fierce.

Second, the established publishers do not want to take chances. Copy success, use publishing formulae, use authors and illustrators with a pattern of success with the style they are presenting.  The comments I got from presenting BBB are that “it isn’t a comic book format.” Others said, “it isn’t a graphic novel format.” There you go. They do not know what to do with it! I do not blame them for not wanting to take a chance. Why should they? They will be out of business if they gamble with their business, which is always a marginal enterprise. Even Marvel Comics was bankrupt.

The best way to be a successful writer or illustrator is to go out and meet people in the industry. When I started out, I published my own poster of “The Stone Eater and advertised in Stars and Stripes, and Heavy Metal. One day I walked into the office of James Warren to buy advertising in Creepy and Eerie. They asked what I wanted to advertise and I showed them the poster. They showed James Warren who came out of his office to meet me. The exchange that followed got me a cover commission.

Later I set up a table at a Sci-fi Convention at Columbia University. There was Stu Schiff who had a table with his Whispers and first editions he put out of famous authors like Isaac Asimov and Stephen King.  He came over and we got to know each other and he bought a small painting. Later at the Lunicon Sci-fi publishing convention in NYC I exhibited my “Visionary Foal” and won the Grand Prize for Fantasy Art. There Stu introduced me to David Hartwell and he gave me the commission for Pamela Sargent’s Watch Star.

The jungle drums were tapping out that there’s an interesting new illustrator out there. So everywhere I went they came out to view my portfolio and treated me with the utmost respect.

In other words, one cannot simply sit in your office and send out emails. There is magic in meeting people face to face. There is magnetism in persona contact.

I do not have time to do that for BBB. I have made a bit of effort to see what could be done immediately with BBB, but now it is what I already said was a long slog. I no longer attend conventions, and even if I did, they prefer the “new young talent.”

So, we will just keep going until “something comes along…”