Product Description

The stories of Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) are wonderful evocations of ordinary Italian life, focusing in particular on his native Sicily. In an original and dynamic prose style, he portrays such eternal human themes as love, honour and adultery with rich and colourful language. The inspiration for Mascagni’s opera, ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ depicts a young man’s triumphal return home from the army, spoilt when he learns that his beloved is engaged to another man. Verga’s acute awareness of the hardships and aspirations of peasant life can be seen in stories such as ‘Nedda’, ‘Picturesque Lives’ and ‘Black Bread’, while others such as ‘The Reverend’ and ‘Don Licciu Papa’ show the dominance of the church and the law in the Sicilian communities he portrays so vividly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355686 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-30
• Original language: Italian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

London Review of Books
'The work retains its universality, and one suspects that these translations will last a long time'

London Review of Books
'At his best, as G.H.McWilliam's distinguished new translations of the stories allow us to see, Verga is quite the equal of Chekhov'

London Review of Books
'McWilliam, who is an emeritus professor of Italian at Leicester, calls Verga 'the greatest Italian short-story writer since Boccaccio', but adds that he is 'grossly underrated' outside Italy, largely because of the difficulty of translating him. McWilliam's labours read superbly well. They are cleansing; a lot of wordy grime has been removed (I am thinking of the translations that were made in the 1930s and 1950s). There is a vernacular ease of address, and yet hardly a moment at which the English version seems too local - i.e. English. The effect is oddly as if they had been translated twice, once into English, and then into a regional English which does not exist. The work retains its universality, and one suspects that these translations will last a long time. Nowhere is Verga's narrative power (or McWilliam's subtle tracings of that power) better evidenced than in the heartbreaking tale, 'Rosso Malpelo'

Customer Reviews

Translation
So far the best traslation of Verga from italian. The novel inside "Rosso Malpelo" is a Masterpiece of the italian (and european) literature. I gave only 4stars since I am italian and reading it in Italian gives me more goosebumps..