Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto will discuss translating My Language is a Jealous Lover by Adrián N. Bravi into English. They will read from the text and share their process of translating and working together on the project.
My Language Is a Jealous Lover explores the plights and successes of authors who lived and wrote in languages other than their mother tongue, from Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov to Ágota Kristóf and Joseph Brodsky. Author Adrián N. Bravi weaves their stories in with his own experiences as an Argentinian-Italian, thinking and writing in the language of his new life while recalling that of his childhood. Bravi bears witness to the frustrations, the soul-searching, the pain, and the joys of embracing another language.
Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi (Professor Emerita) and Victoria Offredi Poletto (Senior Lecturer Emerita) have taught and collaborated in the Department of Italian Studies at Smith College since 1990. They are committed to bringing the voices of migrant and second-generation writers to the English-speaking world. Together they have translated many short stories from Italian into English as well as five books: Geneviève Makaping’s Reversing the Gaze: What if the Other Were You? and Adrián N. Bravi’s My Language is a Jealous Lover (both Rutgers University Press, 2023); Gabriella Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di perle and Cristina Ali Farah’s Little Mother (both with Indiana University Press, 2015 and 2007); and Dacia Maraini’s Stowaway on Board (Bordighera Press, 2000). They are currently working on an anthology collecting and translating materials written in the last thirty years by first and second generation migrant writers. They are also collaborating on the translation of new materials that will accompany Sri Lankan-Italian director Surganga Katugampala’s new film.
Cosponsored by IAWA: Italian American Writers Association
https://iawa.net