A Short Biography of One of our Authors

Here is a short account of the life of Adolfo Rossi, the author of one of our vintage books in translation entitled In the Land of Dollars: Three Years in New York.

Adolfo Rossi was born in a community known then as Valdentro , five kilometers from present-day Lendinara, in 1857. After a short stay in Occhiobello he moved to Lendinara in 1864, where he became a student of Alberto Mario, Garibaldi's right-hand man. He was a postal employee when he left the area in 1879, headed for New York, where, after trying his hand at a number of different jobs, he began a career as a journalist for the Italian language newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano. Here he learned the American style of journalism, short and to the point, without fancy embellishments, and always verified in person, a style completely different from that of Europe at the time.

Upon his return to Italy several years later, and by then known for his journalism and writing, he was invited to become a war correspondent for the large Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera. He covered the Greco-Turkish war, but was expelled from Istanbul when he wrote of Turkish massacres of Armenians.

He was then offered a position with the Roman newspaper La Tribuna, and covered the social unrest in Sicily in 1893. Following that he spent time in the Italian colony of Eritrea reporting on the government's political policies. Because he denounced these policies, which his paper supported, he was expelled from the country. However, after the humiliating defeats of the Italian forces in East Africa, he was summoned by the prime minister, Francesco Crispi, to give his observations and criticisms on the organization and operation of the Italian army in Eritrea.

At the same time he accepted the position of managing editor of the Corriere della Sera, but in 1901 he left journalism to become a traveling inspector for the Commission for National Emigration. He toured Brazil, Argentina, the United Sates, and South Africa in this capacity, voicing harsh criticism for the Italian immigrants' conditions, calling that community "The Italy of Shame."  His efforts were noteable, however, since shortly afterwards the Prinetti decree was enacted, disallowing Brazil from offering free one-way passage to Italian immigrants.

In 1908 he became a diplomat, first as a consul in the United States, then Paraguay, and finally the plenipotentiary minister in Buenos Aires, where he died in 1921. His body was brought in a naval vessal back to Italy where he was given a state funeral.

Among his other works are Nacociù, la Venere Americana (Nacociù, the American Venus), Un italiano in America (An Italian in America), and Alla Guerra Greco-Turca (The Greco-Turkish War). 

Source: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Rossi

Public Advisory Regarding the Emigration Law

For those who have ancestors who emigrated to another country, or anyone who wants to experience a small part of what it was like, reading this actual historical artifact from the time of the great migration from Europe to America will give you a taste of what the early 20th-century emigrant experienced. 

This fascinating booklet is a bulletin published by the Royal Emigration Commission of the Kingdom of Italy, explaining the requirements of the new (in 1901) law for emigrating, and advising potential emigrants in order to protect them from unscrupulous agents. 

Thousands upon thousands of people received this booklet after making the fateful decision to go, and prior to actually embarking on the ships. Wonder at how they must have felt reading these lines, with hopes and dreams for their new life.

Available now for Kindle at $.99:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PIWYRQ8 

Biography of an 18th-Century Master Thief and Counterfeiter

   For Bologna it was the proverbial crime of the century. The year is 1789 and a number of unsolved minor thefts and other crimes have led up to a shocking burglary at the city's beloved charitable pawnbroking institution for the poor, the Monte di Pieta'. The police are completely baffled, the citizens are demanding answers, and no one can believe the audacity nor grasp the ingenuity of the crime. 

   This historically accurate account traces the later life of Girolamo Ridolfi, alias Count Girolamo Lucchini, from his days as a gambler and petty thief in Venice to his crime spree in Bologna as a master thief and counterfeiter, and finally to his ultimate fate. Descriptions of 18th-century life and customs in Bologna add a rich backdrop to the story, as Lucchini's escapades are traced throughout the city. 
   This was a man who could have made his fortune using his extraordinary talents and skills as a master craftsman, but instead, Lucchini chose a life of crime. Yet even as a criminal, he may have succeeded in never paying for his offenses had he not broken one of his own cardinal rules: confide in no one.

Available for Kindle at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OI1PLE2

"Memories of a Trip to Sicily"

A timeless description of the beautiful island of Sicily by one of the great writers of Italy. After forty years Edmondo De Amicis, author of the wonderful Cuore (Heart), returns to Sicily for a grand tour of the island. Keen observer of both places and people, De Amicis gives us flowing accounts of its landscapes, history, and people. At each point in the journey, Messina, Palermo, the interior, the coastlines, Catania, Syracuse, and Taormina, he combines social and historical information with just enough detail to make you feel as though you are his traveling companion. Filled with rich metaphors, you will smell the fresh Sicilian air, feel the Sicilian sun on your face, and hear the Sicilian chatter on the busy streets. Step back in time and tour the island as it was in 1908 with a master narrator as your guide.

Kindle version available for $0.99 at:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K5CLB9M

Biography of Verdi for Young Adults

Informative and entertaining to older and young adults alike, this biography of Giuseppe Verdi, translated from the original Italian, was written by a contemporary of Verdi one year after the great composer’s death. Filled with anecdotes about the maestro, the book presents not only the details of Verdi’s life and accomplishments, but also lessons to be learned by young people from his example of diligence, hard work, humility and simplicity. More than 30 pictures have been added throughout the original work to help bring this inspiring story to life.

Available for Kindle at:   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J0H0T4Q

A General's Memoirs about Struggles in Italy, Spain and Mexico

 

His name appears on street signs in cities across Italy, yet outside that country he is virtually unknown. These are the fascinating memoirs of a man who contributed significantly to the unification of Italy, as well as the liberal movements in Spain and Mexico, told in his own words.

Giuseppe Avezzana began his military career at the age of fifteen, when he enlisted in Napoleon's Grande Armeé. His career went on to span several decades, four countries and two continents. In Italy, in Spain, in Mexico, wherever there was a struggle for liberty, independence, and justice, General Avezzana was on the front lines fighting for these noble causes. Rising through the ranks from an isolated sentry on an island in the Rhine river to being appointed general by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in Mexico and later Giuseppe Garibaldi in Italy, his integrity and dedication to duty won him the admiration of not only those who knew him personally and those in his commands, but also the freedom-loving citizens for whom he fought. Loving husband and father, prosperous businessman, he nonetheless heard the cry for independence from his beloved homeland and answered the call, heading the ministry of war for the ill-fated Roman Republic.

It is written in an elegant, sincere style that combines both the grand scale of events with personal anecdotes that make this book a pleasure to read.

Available for Kindle at:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I115AD2

Why I Love Translating Italian

There are many reasons why translators do what they do. Naturally, one reason is very mundane - to make a living. But when you're translating unknown books, published in a foreign language 100 years ago or more, the likelihood of making a living off it is extremely slim.

My reasons are more personal. First, I love the Italian language. I love how it sounds. I love how structured and regular it is (with some exceptions, of course, as in all languages, but not nearly as many as English or French). It is a thrill for me to listen to it, to read it, to write it, and to know that it comes down to us in a straight line from the language spoken by the ancient Romans 2,000 years ago. It is also the language of a great people who live life fully and who have excelled in all aspects of culture (they gave us the Renaissance, for goodness sake!).

Translating is like unlocking a door, decoding a secret cache of documents. And translating older, unknown books makes the whole enterprise even more special to me. I feel as though I am opening a window for millions of people who would otherwise go their whole lives not hearing about the things in these books, not even knowing what these books were about.

Francis Bacon said that books are ships which pass through the vast seas of time.
That is exactly how I think of them, as time capsules, the closest thing we can come to time travel (right now, anyway). What a thrill to translate the thoughts and feelings of a person a century ago speaking of something familiar to you today! You can picture yourself standing next to him or her, wanting desperately to talk back! Imagine how I feel knowing that a description of some joyous, devastating, or even everyday event so long ago would be lost, lost forever, if not for this one obscure portion of a text, and that I am showing it to the English-speaking world. I can almost sense the gratitude of the people whose lives were touched by it. "We were there, and you remember us!" Now imagine that each book contains dozens, hundreds of such events. It is overwhelming! It is also a responsibility, and one that I take very seriously.

A Boy Learns about Life

 

This is the heartwarming story of a poor, innocent boy in late nineteenth-century Sicily, who learns about the truly important things in life through three different jobs, each more demanding and rewarding than the previous one, on the way to his ultimate fate. He begins to understand how every event in his life, big and small, even the seemingly insignificant, forms a link in the chain that binds him to his destiny. Does he have a hand in his own ultimate fate, or is he swept along by some unforeseen force? Is the outcome inevitable? If not, what would he give in love, sweat, tears to change it?

Available for Kindle at:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G8K4B74

A Journalist Follows the Emigrants to America

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw millions upon millions of Italian emigrants going to what they believed to be a new and wonderful life in the Americas. While today the focus is on the success that their descendants have had in those adopted countries, the fact is that many of these poor, illiterate people, because of their lack of education, complaisant nature toward authority and burning hope for a better life, were easily led to the dream of riches and then exploited and abused. Reality was far from the picture painted by the enticing propaganda of the time. Not everyone, however, was indifferent to the plight of those who left and those who still dreamed of leaving.
 
One newspaper in Italy, the Corriere Della Sera of Milan, chose to do what would be called today an investigative exposé. From November, 1901 to September, 1902, they published articles written by journalist Luigi Barzini, who sent in his stories while making the trip from Italy to Argentina with the emigrants, then traveling around Argentina to see the conditions for himself. His aim was simple: to tell the real story of emigration, not the concocted fairy tales of easy riches and a life of leisure that so many of his fellow countrymen believed. He also described in detail the serious problems and ineffectual solutions of Argentina at that time, which Barzini found at the root of his countrymen’s misery. The modern-day reader will recognize many of these problems and solutions almost as if they came from today’s headlines. He saw first-hand the humiliations, the injustices, the deprivations that many emigrants from Italy faced, made all the worse because their expectations were so high. Once his stories began to be published, those who had a financial stake in the status quo tried to undermine his efforts. He faced angry mobs and was attacked in the indigenous newspapers. He continued, however, to write his stories in order that the truth be known back home.
Wishing to keep interest high in the situation facing the emigrants, the Corriere and Barzini subsequently published these newspaper articles as a collection in this book. In it the reader will find a chronicle of Barzini’s experiences in Argentina and his fervent arguments against the wholesale emigration of Italians to the new world.

Available for Kindle at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CCGIRT6/

A Novel about Love and Vendetta

Enter the world of aristocratic nineteenth-century Italy, a world of vendettas where there is no limit to how long a man may lurk in the shadows before striking his victim, like a viper.
Emilio Lograve was born into this world with few of the advantages of his class. He was not a handsome or virile man, and his inherited wealth was nearly lost to a rapacious house servant. He had but few personal attributes. What he had, however, he honed to perfection: a patient, cunning mind, a knowledge of medicine and surgery acquired through a university degree, and a steady hand and sharp eye with a dueling pistol. He wanted to love and be loved, but was abused as a child at home, rejected as a youth at school and rebuffed as a man by the woman he longed for. In his evil mind love became obsession and vendetta justice. The happiness of his rival and the woman they both loved was his pain and torment. Meticulously planned and skillfully executed, his plot for revenge would be complete. But even the most scheming mind cannot control the force of destiny, and the best plans can often have unforeseen consequences and go terribly wrong…

Available for Kindle at:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EW46XBU

An Italian Journalist Observes Life in 19th-Century America

 

An execution by hanging for a man driven insane in his cell by delays, a sumptuous costume ball on Fifth Avenue attended by 1,250 guests, barbers arrested for opening their shops on Sunday mornings, opium dens on the Lower East Side – this is the New York of the late 19th century, seen first-hand and described in this book by Adolfo Rossi, a journalist for the Italian-American newspaper Il Progresso. He details the three years he spent living and working in New York, the fascinating, and oftentimes humorous events he witnessed, the people, both famous and ordinary, that he met, and the social and political ideas he saw in practice in the America of the 1880’s. It is a story of monopolies and market crashes, the so-called blue laws, polygamy and religious revival, fantastic opulence and extreme poverty. It is also the story of the man himself, who comes to America with preconceived notions of this young republic and returns to Europe, his opinions and attitudes changed forever.

Available for Kindle at:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D3VVRLY/