Dandelions

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In last weekend’s national elections Italians overwhelmingly chose to make Giorgia Meloni the country’s first far-right leader “since the Second World War.” That’s the way most foreign commentators put it and I wonder why they don’t just say it straight: “since Benito Mussolini,” or—better—“since Mussolini’s Fascist government, which banned opposition and murdered its own citizens.” I asked if it was malaria that took the first baby Manlio or the twins, but she didn’t know. “It’s possible. You prayed it wouldn’t happen but there were cases. The marshes were not far from here.” For me, working in an office that receives hundreds of books a week, from publishers around the world, the health of small presses often makes itself felt through the element of surprise. The books that catch my eye tend to be the ones that you can’t quite imagine the big publishers bringing out – because they’re niche or experimental or foreign, or all of the above. 2. You host a weekly podcast. How have podcasts and other forms of audio contributed to an increase in book sales? Exactly. You see how the decisions that another character made years ago filter down. So, think about The Lying Life of Adults: the lies you tell and their legacy. With The Cazalet Chronicles, it’s the afterlife of lies and mistakes, that ripples through lives—their own, and their family members’. I do always wonder about those shows about family history, like Who Do You Think You Are? I wonder how many celebrities they start looking into the family history of, but give up because they simply can’t find anything that’s going to make them cry on television. But let’s talk about your final book recommendation, which is Lea Ypi’s acclaimed Free: Coming of Age at the End of History.

Dandelions is a book of hauntings, intensely experienced, pierced by occasional terrors, yet irradiated throughout by passionate attachment. Generations of family ghosts wander between Italy and England, their lives summoned from a beloved grandmother’s long memories and the author’s own wide-roaming, often poetic reflections on botany, history and language. Thea Lenarduzzi has spread out before us a feast of sensuous and sensitive, nuanced and deeply appealing testimony to migration, survival, and complicated identities at a time when such thoughtfulness is rare and desperately needed.’ After cooling, pieces are blasted with grit and then fettled, smoothing the edges. Though much is still done by hand, “robots” were introduced eight years ago. “It's tough work,” says M Sallé, “and we're in a state of permanent innovation.” Ma Mussolini ha fatto anche cose buone, “But Mussolini also did good things”: a common phrase in Italy, increasingly so as distrust in democracy grows and social media creates fertile ground for historical revisionism. Spend enough time in the country and you will hear the words spoken, sometimes by the person you least expect. A good, kind person. Imagine it being slipped into conversation casually, muttered wistfully, like the refrain of a half-remembered hymn. Think of it bobbing up to the surface like a cork in water, or a body—it startles you that way—and consider the heft of that opening “but,” and all that lies bound and weighted below. I was unfamiliar with Antonia Pozzi. Born in Milan in 1912, she lived a brief life, dying by suicide in 1938. She lived during a powerful time in Italian history. It’s true that her work is significantly underrepresented in translation; it is for the most part associated with Lawrence Venuti’s Breath, and in the UK, Peter Robinson’s Poems. She left among her papers diaries, notebooks, and over 300 poems. Her poems would be altered by those who desired to present her in what they perceived as the best light. First her father would censor the work, and then Eugenio Montale would offer praise that unwittingly illustrated the cultural predicament of women writers of her time and beyond. And then suddenly—really suddenly—the country opened up. Democracy arrived! People could vote! Go to church! Do whatever they wanted! And it was great. Or was it? Problems soon came, money ran out, violence erupted; there was mass disillusionment. ‘Freedom,’ it seemed, was not that great after all.I say nothing when Nonna says such things. He was let down by those around him. He lost control of the generals. He was misled, people forget. These lines, residua of her formal education, I think, don’t seem to fit with the other things I know about her, so mostly, I let them wash over me and try to forget. I can’t bring myself to engage because, I confess, I’m frightened of what else might come out.

Lenarduzzi…finds potent symbols amid the phantasmagoria and subtly evokes their haunting power, which endows her work with a fabular quality redolent of Marina Warner… Lenarduzzi accommodates her family’s experiences without becoming obscure. Ultimately, the book’s greatest strength lies in her willingness to disturb histories previously thought to be settled.’ Sylvia Plath. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, edited by Karen V. Kukil, Anchor, 2000, p. 77.

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terribile essere una donna, ed avere diciassette anni. Dentro non si ha che un pazzo desiderio di donarsi. Ha ragione lei di dire che le donne non valgono niente. Noi vediamo prima, ma i nostri occhi si chiudono anche prima. Scorgiamo le vette, ma, se qualcuna vi arriva, è perché ha in sé molto di virile. 3(It’s terrible to be a woman and to be seventeen. Inside there is only a crazy desire to give. You are right to say that women are worth nothing. We see first, but our eyes are closed even before. We glimpse the peaks, but if someone gets there, it’s because she has a great deal of virility.) It was very common,” she said, “and very dangerous. You would get a fever and twenty-four hours later you were dead.” One thing that has changed recently is that the TLS has partnered with the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, to encourage and celebrate everyone’s hard work, and to throw a little bit of money into the mill – because you can’t over estimate the difference a couple of thousand pounds can make to a small press and its authors. 4. What do you look for in a good editor-author relationship?