A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tett…

As many of you know, August is #WITMonth (Women in Translation), a celebration of books by women writers, initially written in languages other than English and then translated for English-speaking …

Now that we’re well into July, I thought it might be interesting to put together a mid-year review, summarising my reading highlights from January to June. I seem to say this every year, but 2026 i…

BOOK CLUB Book of the month: Verdigris by Michele Mari Translated by Brian Robert Moore Special guest: Brian Robert Moore, translator, winner of the 2025 PEN Translation Prize and the 2025 Italian Pro...

A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tett…

A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tett…

A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tett…

A couple of years ago, I read and thoroughly enjoyed A Silence Shared, a beautiful, enigmatic novel by the Italian writer, translator and artist Lalla Romano. First published in Italy in 1957, Tett…

The murdered Poet became for him the gash in the center of the sun, the model and the justification for being misunderstood. From the audience, during academic conferences, he hurled passionate and se...

The murdered Poet became for him the gash in the center of the sun, the model and the justification for being misunderstood. From the audience, during academic conferences, he hurled passionate and se...

From Switzerland we take a little hop and a skip into northern Italy, specifically Lake Maggiore (which indeed has its northern toe sticking...

Andrew Martino on Lalla Romano's "In Farthest Seas" as an understated yet profound portrayal of love and death

Roisín O’Donnell’s Nesting, Helen Garner’s How to End a Story and Liadan Ní Chuinn’s Every One Still Here are among the year’s top choices

The impression is that Romano is attempting to stretch time in order to prolong her husband's life, summoning memories of his past selves as a form of resistance against death.

There’s been something of a resurgence of interest in ‘classic’ Italian women writers in recent years, largely focusing on Natalia Ginzburg, whose work I very much enjoy. (Her ess…

In Farthest Seas by Lalla Romano, tr. Robert Moore, reviewed by Rosa Picard "For me, to write has always been to pluck from the dense and complex fabric of life, some image, from the noise of the world one note, and surround them with silence," wrote Lalla Romano in A Silence Shared. Indeed, In Farthest Seas is strung from plucked details, simply and finely formed in Romano’s crystalline prose.

Editor's Choice: As the nights draw in and the air gets chillier, the autumn months are the perfect time for some serious book indulgence.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another issue of Words for Worlds.