Isbn Edizioni
WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO
Established in Milan in 2004, and operating independently since 2009, Isbn was cofounded and is currently owned by Massimo Coppola, an Italian author and director,
who through his intellectual-meets-pop productions has embodied a significant voice
in Italian culture for a decade. Though it started as a books-only publishing house,
Isbn soon widened its production to more pop-culture oriented editorial activities
such as film, web, art direction, and events design. Isbn’s editorial focus stems from
the idea that there is a generation of readers in their thirties whose conception of
«cultural objects» is far wider than that of their parents: they are curious and open-
Special Books (fiction)
Red Books (fiction)
Launched in 2010, this new fiction
series, with a brand new graphic and
packaging approach, focuses on edgy,
plot-driven novels. Among the published titles are successes like Paul
Murray’s Skippy Dies, Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief and Generation
A, Shane Jones’s Light Boxes, Glen
Duncan’s The Last Werewolf, Ernest
Cline’s Ready Player One, Adam Wilson’s Flatscreen, and Chris Fuhrman’s
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. All
of the Special Books have been film
optioned. The series won the European
Design Award for book covers in 2011.
Isbn Edizioni has built a strong list
of literary fiction coming from awardwinning writers (Will Self, Tom McCarthy, Ben Brooks, Jon McGregor,
ZZ Packer and many others) and cult
figures (Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Brautigan, Steve Martin, David Ohle, Breece
D’J Pancake, James M. Cain). We have
no borders: we translate great fiction
from all over the world, from France to
Japan, from Russia to India. Several of
our Italian authors have won prizes and
have been translated abroad.
minded, they don’t judge reality against fixed models just because they feel comfortable with them, and while they aren’t heavy readers, they consume culture without
prejudice. In other words, reading a book for them is no more «cultural» than buying
a pair of sneakers or surfing the web. For this reason, we have to look at books through
new eyes, with new and complex means that are completely different from the artificial categories of high-or-low culture. This is why, from the very beginning Isbn has
given great attention to the look of its books as well as the quality of their content.
Yellow Books (non-fiction)
Blue Books (mainly illustrated)
The first of our non-fiction series is
dedicated to pop culture (with essays
by Douglas Coupland and Simon Reynolds), socio-political and economic essays (Susan Faludi, Elizabeth Pisani,
Mark Ames, Jean Peyrelevade, Philip
Nobel, Brian Whitaker, Francis Wheen,
and Michael Breen), sports essays (Sandro Modeo, Simon Kuper, Simon Freeman, The Secret Footballer and Jonathan Wilson), and philosophy essays
(Peter Szendy, Ruwen Ogien, and Jérome Garcin’s Nouvelles Mythologies).
The second of our non-fiction series
is mostly illustrated and also includes
sports, television, cinema interviews/
essays (Aki Kaurismaki, Stanley Kubrick) as well as music culture (The
Clash by The Clash, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Thurston Moore’s Mix Tape)
and pop culture (on subjects ranging
from subbuteo to judo — as told by
Yves Klein — from dancing and clubbing to skating, from design to photography). Isbn is the Italian publisher of
The Believer, the cult monthly magazine
originally published in the U.S. by Eli
Horowitz and Dave Eggers.
via Conca del Naviglio, 10
20123 Milano · Italy
www.isbnedizioni.it
Tel +39.02.36578933
CONTACTS
Caterina Vodret
rights@isbnedizioni.it
red books
new
isbn edizioni
Omar di monopoli
Expect the hell!
aspettati l’inferno
176 pages | June 2014 | short stories
Omar Di Monopoli (1971) lives and works in Manduria, Puglia. By the same author, Isbn published the
southern western trilogy composed by Uomini e cani
(Men and Dogs), Ferro e Fuoco, (Iron and Fire) and La
legge di Fonzi (Fonzi’s Law). Men and Dogs in 2008 was
awarded the literary prize Edoardo Kihlgren and in 2015
will become a movie produced by Rai cinema interpreted
by Sergio Rubini.
Omar Di Monopoli’s epic pen is back. The southern Italian writer gives us ten unpublished and original pearls:
short stories that are a pure concentrate of his pulp and
Faulknerian style. Set in a archaic Southern Italy – that
has nothing to do with the one whose beaches are invaded
by bunches of tourists every summer – each story explores
a different literary genre, especially those that are considered b-genres, in literature as well as in cinema: splatter,
horror, fantasy, historic and sci-fi alternate inside the book.
Omar’s South is the South of the losers and the forgotten
– an immense suburb built unlawfully, governed by Mafia
and devastated by the factories. This South is populated by
gangsters, local witches, crazy fishermen and even huge
mutant worms – alla characters whose B-movie existence
is about to be forgotten.
«Di Monopoli has a cryptic and dense
writing and a breathtaking rythym.»
D di Repubblica
«Cruel dialogues à la Tarantino, a
restless atmosphere à la Innaritu.»
la Repubblica XL
«An expressionist and rough style
at the same time.» Marco Lodoli, la Repubblica
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claudio panzavolta
The last summer at
the Delfino Bath
L’ultima estate al bagno delfino
176 pages | April 2014 | novel
the background, an enchanted marine microcosm made of
scents, sounds and feeling bursts out from the pages.
Claudio Panzavolta was born in 1982 in Faenza, near
Ravenna. He has a degree in History from the University
of Bologna. Then, he studied screenwriting in Rome, and
now he works as copyeditor. This is his first novel.
Marina, the 90s.
Around the Delfino Bath, a beach resort by the Adriatic
seaside, the childhoods of a group of teenagers intertwine
over ten years. One summer after the other, Corrado, Micheal, Monica, Antonino and Alessio spend the holidays
with their families in Marina: their first adventures take
place by the beach, in the pine forest nearby, at the arcade
and at the soccer field. They realize what feelings are, they
discover desire, pain, the female universe, and at last, during that last intense season, they violently embark on adult
life.
The summer of 1998 will be the last of Michael’s life, he will
die in an accident, when he is only 17. His death will bring
guilt and regret into his friends’ lives, but it will also leave
an unforgettable mark to them. In particular to Monica, as
her friendship with Michael, year after year, has become an
anguished love story. Through Corrado’s eyes, we observe
their feeling begin, grow and finally break. The characters’
point of views mix one with another, their voices grow wiser
and develop to create a romantic polyphonic love story. On
Extract from the book:
«It’s dark, everyone is back home.
There is Antonio, Fabio and me. We sit on the ground, close, our backs are tense against Lordo’s wall. I’m not able to face them, it’s tough to talk. Even
Fabio, who is always a jerk, is silent now. Maybe we should run away, but I can’t stand up. It’s as if an invisible resin was holding me here.
Everything is quiet, the air is chill, I hear the sound of the waves and the chirping of the crickets. The wind shakes beach umbrellas and pine needles.
I hear Fabio’s quick breath. He is scared.»
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Luca Giordano
Where the Flowers
don’t Grow
Qui non crescono i fiori
176 pages | June 2013 | novel
Shortlisted as Italian author for Scritture
Giovani 2013 and his debut for the Festival du
premier roman di Chambery.
Two kids learn how to tame their friends. A new
talented author tells a story about growing-up,
friendship and escape in a harsh and deeply sensitive style.
A compelling novel for Niccolò Ammaniti and
Cormac McCarthy’s readers, and whoever has
loved Gabriele Salvatores and Alejandro Iñárritu’s movies.
shop. Despite all, these three men are a family. They are
surrounded by the sea, a small blue bay which serves as
their freedom hideout, an inescapable barren landscape
and a sultriness that paralyses every prospect. The two
brothers look for their own way to escape or tame the hostile nature of the Island. Salvatore founds his own by taking
shelter in an abandoned cottage out in the fields, regardless of his father’s forbiddance. Ignoring these words, as
soon as he can, the boy runs to this only place where he can
keep his secret: a stray dog he’s trying to tame. He doesn’t
know that place hides another secret too, from which his
father and brother have always been trying to protect him.
Luca Giordano was born in Turin in 1985. He graduated
at «Centro sperimentale di cinematografia» and got a nominee at the Premio Solinas. He also wrote the screenplay of Il
terzo tempo (Universal), a movie starring Stefania Rocca and
Stefano Cassetti, which was presented at the Venice Film
Festival 2013. This is his first novel.
Salvatore and his elder brother Damiano were born on the
Island. Salvatore doesn’t remember his mother: she left
when he was still a little boy, and nobody wants to tell him
anything about her. His dad is a rough man, a used-to-be
alcoholic who’s trying to start his own small garage work-
«A debut novel with a solid intersected structure,
set in movie-like visual and sound atmospheres
and imbued with bright emotional violence.»
La Lettura - Corriere della Sera
«Using a minimal, realist and very evocative narrative style, with
cold harshness and bitter sensitivity, Luca Giordano describes a
family drama and lays out the emaciated and ravenous frame of a
complex and difficult land, averting the usual clichés and offering
us an ambitious story.»
la Repubblica
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davide maria de luca
Dictionary of bollocks
dizionario delle balle
256 pages | March 2014 | novel
Foreword by Antonio Pascale
Davide Maria De Luca, born in 1985, is a professional
journalist. He has written articles for the local newspaper
Arena di Verona and the international Agence Europe from
Bruxelles. After working on inquiries about the catholic
party Comunione e Liberazione and its finance, in 2013
he has published San Marino Spa. At present, he is a
columnist for the online newspaper www.ilpost.it, where
he reveals the lies in recent events.
Before each election, political parties use to publish a
plan where they explain bullet points, objectives and
strategies that later they regularly ignore, while journalists and columnists criticize and attack them often using
the same bollocks as the politicians.
Throughout his book, Davide De Luca declares war to
this “bollocks system” which pervades our election campaigns (including the reduction of taxes, public expense,
immigration policy, criminality and much more). The author develops a strict fact checking in order to help his
readers (and electors) to understand the truth and stop
being mocked by politicians.If you cannot stand politicians and their lies, if you still believe in a necessary and
possible objectivity, you need to read this book. Written
as an analytic list, this dictionary gathers and reveals all
kind of lies and falsifications told by politicians, journalists, and anti-politicians.
«Democracy [...] is an experiment, and its positive result is not sure. In any case, there is no doubt that we have
a duty: we must understand how (and manage to) introduce the analytical system into the political subject.
We cannot just think, our duty is to reason out.»
From the foreword by Antonio Pascale
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Giovanni Robertini
The last party
l’ultimo party
192 pages | April 2013 | novel
Illustrations by Ana Kraš
«From the man who’s been described as the new Luciano Bianciardi comes an instant book on what we’ve
all become: temporary workers of culture, unrelenting
but, all things considered, optimistic employees.»
Repubblica
«As a reader, I hope to find more and more books like
this in bookshops: Robertini’s work is modern, intelligent, quick and it describes in a funny and graceful way
the new, heterogeneous cultural class. I hope this becomes the moral compass of 2013.»
Antonio Pascale
Right before the closing party of a publishing house, a
young writer is assigned with jotting down the profiles of all
the guests. The publisher wants to collect them in a book
that he will then give to said guests during the party, to
mark his departure from business in style. The result is this
«bestiary», a satirical and grotesque collection of all the
species that populate the habitat of the so-called culture
industry or simply hang out in this lively microcosm: we
have the contemporary artist, cooped up in his ivory tower
of pretentiousness, the intellectuals (both right-wingers
and left-wingers), the dj and his «empty dance floor syndrome», the neurotic TV writer and the drug dealer, who
supplies the entire brigade with «comfort items»; there is
the musician, the fashion model, the designer and many
other «social animals». And then, of course, we have the
writer who, while spending his days working at the book
he’s been commissioned to write by the publisher, at night,
filled with inspiration, puts his heart and soul into a novel
about the decay of cultural jobs, a prophetic allegory that
narrates the adventures of a group of pandas who are forced
to change their lifestyle to ward off the threat of extinction.
Giovanni Robertini was born in 1975 in Milan, where he
lives and works as a TV writer. He currently writes for the
TV show Le invasioni barbariche.
Ana Kraš was born in Serbia in 1984. After graduating
from the University Of Applied Arts in Belgrade she immigrated to the United States. She’s an illustrator, photographer, designer, video-artist and architect.
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Marco Giusti
You made them... I kill them!
vedo… l’Ammazzo e torno
decay of a country that’s spiraling out of control, where
comedians become successful politicians and election
battles are fought on TV: a country Giusti paints a lively
and unforgettable portrait of.
480 pages | August 2013 | cinema, non-fiction
Foreword by Carlo Freccero
with a special appearance by Checco Zalone
No one talks about cinema like Marco Giusti: his provocative intelligence and his extremely personal mix of
irony and teenage candor are already part of our collective imagination. From the point of view of someone
who’s always ready to reward courage and innovation,
to be moved by a perfect narrative device and to get
carried away by a genius gag or a thrilling gunfight,
Giusti takes us on an over a year-long journey amidst
middle-class and «over-the-top» comedies, art films
and 3D Hollywood blockbusters. You made them... I kill
them! is a well-read, one of a kind movie buff’s diary
that doesn’t spare anyone or anything: the embarrassing international diplomacy of Italy’s movie executives,
the producers’ lack of courage and the increasingly poor
quality of the scripts, the dwindling departmental budgets, the ridiculous pervasiveness of local sponsors and
the old fogey critics who are stuck in the mire of obsolete logics. But the daunting situation of Italian cinema
industry is only the mirror of the cultural and political
«His favourite saying “I’m a stranger
here to myself” (quoting Nicholas Ray).»
Io Donna - Corriere della Sera
Marco Giusti is a TV writer, director and journalist. A
movie and advertising expert, he created several shows,
among which Blob and Stracult. He collaborates with il
manifesto and two years ago he started writing a column
called Il Cinema dei Giusti (Giusti’s cinema) on the Dagospia website. Also published by Isbn is his book Italian
007, 2010.
memoir
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Max Pezzali
Cowboys never give up
i cowboy non mollano mai
224 pages | October 2013 | memoir
Some lives seem like they’re destined to be «regular».
Max, for example, was born in Pavia. His parents owned
a flower shop, and they were always busy trying to balance the books at the end of the month. Concealed by his
thick prescription glasses, he hates all sorts of sports and
spends his time in the attic, assembling and disassembling model airplanes, dreaming of cowboys and picturing invasions of massive armies. Growing up, he keeps
away from the rowing clubs and the hip crowd that are so
popular in Pavia, and he hangs out with people who listen
to punk music, heavy metal, the Sex Pistols, new wave,
Springsteen. He has a classmate named Mauro, even
though everyone calls him Flash. Max and Mauro have
one thing in common: they want to run away from Pavia,
from the people’s prejudices and from this self-righteous,
preppy town. So they decide to start making music, to create something that truly represents them.
Cowboys never give up is the story of Max Pezzali: his
family, his friends and enemies in school, the first time
he heard rap music. His first group of friends, the nights
at the local bar and the nights spent in a basement with
Mauro, writing songs and dreaming of America. And then
the sudden success, the «golden age» of 883, the experience at the Red Cross, the Harleys, the women, the little
everyday struggles and the great journeys that teach you
to better understand the world. And finally his solo career, the tours in sports halls and the not always easy relationship with the critics. And then a son, a son you have
to raise and whom you want to tell many fantastic stories.
Some lives seem like they’re destined to be «regular».
And then, something extraordinary happens, and they become the exception that proves the rule.
Max Pezzali was born in Pavia in 1967. When he was 20
years old, he founded the band 883 together with Mauro
Repetto, and in 2004 he began his solo career. His last
album is called «Max 20», a compilation of big hits that
contains 5 previously unreleased singles, among which
L’universo tranne noi, Ragazzo inadeguato and I cowboy
non mollano. His entire life is in this book.
blue books
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Lev Tolstoj
The four reading books
i quattro libri di lettura
Foreword by Ermanno Olmi
Illustrations by Alice Beniero
256 pages | October 2013 |
Children fairytales | deluxe edition, illustrated
The Four Reading Books is a collection of tales written between 1870 and 1875 by the great Russian writer together
with the little students, his serfs’ children, he taught how to
read and write. In this precious anthology we find a little bit
of everything: fables, folk tales, old legends, descriptions of
exotic landscapes, scientific remarks on natural phenomena like ice or steam. When he wrote it, Tolstoj’s aim was for
the book to stimulate his schoolchildren’s curiosity, in fact
the children actively participated in the writing process
by giving accounts of their own inventions, their dreams
or their family’s stories, and they each contributed with
a word or a sentence. He dedicated the book «to all the
children, from those of the Imperial family to those whose
parents were farmers, so that they can draw their own first
“poetic impressions” from it».
In the second half of the 1900s, many Italian children
learned to read thanks to these volumes too, and for those
children who are now adults, The Four Reading Books are
a cult object. Still today, the tales of the dog Bulka, of the
owl and the hare and of the walking trees feature an inventiveness, a narrative strength and a sense of humor that will
affect every reader and awaken their childhood imagination.
Lev Tolstoj His name, for readers worldwide, is indissolubly tied to his novels: War and Peace, Anna Karenina,
Resurrection and The Kreutzer Sonata. But he’s also famous
for his educational and political theories, which came to
life when he founded a school for the children of his village’s farmers. To them and with them, he wrote the tales of
The Four Reading Books.
Alice Beniero is 32 years old and she lives in Milan.
She is Isbn Edizioni’s art director and is also an illustrator.
In 2011, she won the first prize at the European Design
Awards for the design of Isbn’s Special Books series. She
has been teaching illustration for publishing for two years.
Ermanno Olmi is a renowned Italian film director. Olmi’s
films fit into the artistic mold of Italian neorealism. Perhaps
his best known film is The Tree of Wooden Clogs, which was
awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1988, his The Legend of the Holy Drinker, based on the
novel by Joseph Roth, won the Golden Lion at the Venice
Film Festival as well as a David di Donatello award.
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paolo caredda
Wishes from home
The golden age of postcards
saluti da casa
l’età d’oro delle cartoline
240 pages | J uly 2014 | Photo book
What do we expect from a postcard?
Moving from this question, Caredda tracks a very original history of this illustrated object
that for a short period (from the 50s to the 70s) told us a different Italian story, about people
and suburbs, without reflecting the celebratory disposition of the establishment.
Thanks to this picture collection of Genoa, Isernia, Bresso, Milan, Rome, Trapani, Senigallia and many other cities and small towns, Wishes From Home outlines the golden and
unknown age of postcards.
These pictures of suburbs, petrol stations, motorways, flyovers, factories, supermarkets,
hotels, schools, spas and shopping malls, sent by people to relatives and friends, create
a geographical and urban Italian archeology from the years of the economic miracle. Together with a lyric and nostalgic writing , they give an account of the economic boom and
represent the other face of the 60s and 70s in Italy.
«These postcards are the opposite of the usual ones. They are the
celebration of the modernity while the Italy’s economic miracle was
still on. They are pop art, and Paolo Caredda has just decided
to make a book out of it.»
la Repubblica
Paolo Caredda, was born in Genoa. He has lived in Bologna, London and Milan. As a
tv director, he has realized documentaries about ectasy consumers, robbers, Dominican
gangs, the Khazakistan national soccer team and many other bizarre subjects. He has taken
part in various antologies and has written a previous novel.
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Lorenzo «Jovanotti» Cherubini / Michele Lugaresi
Come away with me ti porto via con me
224 pages | September 2013 | Photo book
Foreword and contents by Jovanotti | Photographs by Michele Lugaresi
The summer 2013 show began on June 7th at the Conero Stadium in Ancona. Lorenzo Jovanotti and his band travelled across Italy, from Milan’s San Siro to Rome’s Olimpico, from
Bologna’s Dall’Ara stadium to Bari’s Della Vittoria stadium. More than 300 people were involved in the production of a tour that sold-out at every venue, a show that was enjoyed by
more than 500 000 people. The images in the book show the artist before, during and after the
concerts, and the eye behind the camera is that of his official photographer, Michele Lugaresi,
a.k.a. Maikid, who experienced the tour from behind the scenes. Maikid’s lens focused not
only on the stage, but on the audience as well: the faces of those who had been waiting in the
front row since the early afternoon and those who participated to the show, dancing, laughing, throwing their hands in the air, jumping and, sometimes, tearing up. Lorenzo’s words,
the journal he wrote on the notebook he always brings with him on the road, chronicle the
pictures, retracing the most emotional moments of the tour.
Lorenzo Cherubini, a.k.a. Jovanotti, renovated the language of the Italian singer-songwriting tradition. He has been successful abroad too, although not as much as here because it
would’ve been impossible. In Italy, everyone knows his songs. This doesn’t mean everyone
likes them. Lots of people love him and he loves them back.
Michele Lugaresi, alias Maikid, has been working with Jovanotti since the very beginnings
of soleluna.com. With the lens of his camera he immortalized Lorenzo’s tour and the most
surprising aspect of this arena concerts: the audience’s enthusiasm.
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Alessandro Scotti
Chasing the Dragon
91 sheets | 390 photos | October 2013
numbered edition | photographic essay
anti-drug police who spend every night controlling the Carribbean sea as well as under the burqua of an elderly female Afghani heroin addict. From Tagikistan to Colombia,
from Pakistan to Liberia, from Guinea-Bissau to Myanmar.
Alessandro Scotti’s pictures form an extraordinary, exciting, painful and sincere action movie.
Foreword by Roberto Saviano
Clandestine worlds, meetings, corruption and violence on
the drug traffic routes, in the most global of markets. Six
years were spent «chasing the dragon» among opium growers and crack houses in Bogotà; on the airplanes of the
Alessandro Scotti (1971) is a journalist and a photographer. He was recently appointed Goodwill Ambassador
to the UN. He has worked in more than 20 countries. His
articles and images were published in many magazines in
Italy and abroad.
From Roberto Saviano’s foreword:
Alessandro Scotti has generated a beautiful book. He hasn’t
written it, he hasn’t photographed it. Rather, he has both
written and photographed it. Scotti is a photoreporter who
uses writing as a stencil to his photos. Because his head
and his eye work in that way. He photographs what he sees
with the lens and with his eyes. The lens is his third eye. He
is not a «Polyphemus» of a photoreporter, one of those who
uses only the eye of the camera. He has three eyes, and his
work is fuelled by this triple vision. Narcotica is a beautiful
book. A predictable phrase maybe, but when you hold it in
your hands you will understand why I use such a simple
expression to describe it. It is beautiful because it is a bal-
anced book, which shows with extreme linearity the work
of years, complex work, work of erosion of the surface to get
to where everything begins. When it was published, for the
first time in 2007, I realized that the balance of the stories
was constructed on a blend that was creating a fresco. A
work in which aesthetic care of stories and images is necessary to an understanding of the power of drug traffickers
and the perversion of bodies devoured by drugs. The tale of
the path of drug trafficking: heroin in Iran, opium in Myanmar, the new African colonies of coca in Guinea-Bissau
and then Colombia, Mexico, Jamaica, are the dimensions
of this inferno. I don’t want to describe here what Scotti has
discovered and narrated. Pictures aren’t described, verses
aren’t explained. But poems and canvases can be revealed.
And that which Narcotica reveals is the world as it is, very
far from any interpretation, far, even, from cataloguing.
Alessandro Scotti has been among the first to describe this
world, not with the stumbling block of the canto civile. Nor
even with the romantic wink of the noir. Alessandro Scotti
sees and that is all. He tries to understand, if he suffers he
says so, if he becomes indignant he glosses over it, if he
takes part he has no shame, if he is angry he tries to temper
it to move on and understand more.
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EMANUELE TONON
Emanuele Tonon
The enemy
The first light
112 pages | 2009 | novel
140 pages | 2011 | novel
English sample available
English sample available
il nemico
la luce prima
The First Light has been
shortlisted for the
Campiello Prize.
In this bipartite novel, Emanuele Tonon creates a memorable family epic, displaying a consummate mastery of style. Relentlessly alternating between high and low style, literary and
coarse language, prayer and profanity, Tonon turns writing into a complex esoteric ritual to
denounce the unbearable unfairness of existence. Factory life, wine, a dilapidated Benelli
motorcycle, the internet and the voices of the dead: it all adds up to making this book a
powerful, macabre, magnificent heresy. The enemy is blasphemy, the fierce accusation of
a man towards God: an absolute and deceptive God, who would, if he existed, be liable for
the hateful crime of sanctioning pain, death, and betrayal.
The First Light, Emanuele Tonon’s second novel, is an intense, moving funeral chant for
his mother. With a powerful, unique style, which made The enemy a classic of contemporary Italian literature, Tonon tells the story of an ordinary life: a modest, silent woman who
becomes, with her death, a universal symbol of love. The First Light is a desperate howl for
life, a tender and violent invective against the absurdity of illusions and time. An unforgettable love lament by a writer who pours on his pages the whole essence of himself.
Emanuele Tonon (1970) was born in Napoli and now lives in Gorizia as a factory worker. One of his short stories will be published in a Russian anthology dedicated to young
Italian authors. Emanuele Tonon is the winner of the Scuola Holden «Esordire» Literary
prize (2009).
«With his magmatic and pulsing prose, Tonon gives substance to the desperate
feeling of someone who has looked for and loved God, and then lost Him».
Il Domenicale
«Tonon’s writing is pure life, embedded in a unique voice, sublime and obscene,
The First Light is a love chant for the mother, an abyss where from it’s impossible to come out innocent.»
Michela Murgia
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Francesco Targhetta
Michela Murgia
So we come out well
in photographies
the world has
to know
256 pages | February 2012 | novel
159 pages | New edition: July 2010 |
novel
Perciò veniamo bene
nelle fotografie
il mondo deve sapere
Winner of:
Lo Straniero Literary Prize 2012
English sample available
Rights sold to:
Wagenbach (GERMANY) | United Press
(RUSSIA) | Antolog (MACEDONIA)
shortlisted for:
Carducci Poetry Prize 2012
Flaiano International Prize/ First novel
2012
Fahrenheit Radio Broadcast - book of
the Month
«Nobody moves here, so we come out well in photographies.» is one of many portraits, thus
disarming and brilliant, that the main character sketches about his generation made up of
idealist and unsure guys, switchboard operators and wannabe teachers, anguished smalltowners and urban philosophers. Bildungroman meets everyday epic in this novel about a
Ph.D. student and his roommates – as short-term as he is Between a low-brand prosecco
and a jammy rock song made up in a rehearsal room, the brigade share time in a neighbourhood with «filthy rabble» in working-class Padua. Francesco Targhetta is successful
in an experiment that is as retro as it is up-to-date: he casts a day-dreamer poetry together
with a true story that lets readers identify, and laugh at themselves.
Francesco Targhetta was born in Treviso in 1980. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Padua. This is his first novel.
«The best fiction about the defuturing Italian generation – exploited young adults
without future – it’s a rhymed lines novel. An amazing generation ballad where crooners meet punks».
Corriere della Sera
Film rights sold
Drama rights newly optioned
A novel, a comedy, an investigation. It entertains, it makes you tremble and it pisses you
off. The World Has to Know is the diary of a month in a call center. For thirty interminable
days, the author sold vacuum cleaners on the phone to thousands of housewives for Kirby, an American multinational corporation. In the meantime, she observed the company’s
techniques of persuasion and punishment, describing a working model halfway between
Berlusconism and Scientology. The World Has to Know describes temporary work in a way
that is corrosive, pungent, full of grace and imagination-miraculously making you laugh.
Until you cry.
Michela Murgia (1972) was born in Cabras, Oristano. After her theological studies, she
became a webmaster, manager, and an operator in a call center. The World Has to Know has
recently become a movie by the Italian film director Paolo Virzì and a theatrical pièce. Michela Murgia has also written Viaggio in Sardegna and Accabadora (Dessì Prize, Mondello
Prize, Campiello Prize 2010). This is her first novel.
50 000 copies sold
«Thoroughly engaging, delightful and very funny».
Il Messaggero
red books
isbn edizioni
Roberto Ferrucci
Matteo Sartori
Amedeo Romeo
subversive feelings
family rules
don’t cry, you jerk!
140 pages | 2011 | novel
224 pages | 2010 | novel
192 pages | 2010 | novel |
With a preface by Tiziano Scarpa
English sample available
Proposal for movie production companies available
English sample available
Proposal for movie production companies available
Two moments (1973 and 1978) in Italian history are seen
through the eyes of young Pietro, nicknamed The Archivist, the last son of a sophisticated and unforgettable family that typifies yesterday’s and today’s Italy.
The neo-Existentialist novel of 2010. It describes, in a
light-hearted and poetical way, the search for happiness
of a man like any other. An intelligent and perceptive author, Amedeo Romeo attempts an answer to one of the most
compelling questions of our times: what does it mean to
want to have a child today?
sentimenti sovversivi
Roberto sets out for northwest France because he’s a writer:
he wants to tell a love story that he realizes that the only story
he’s able to write is that of Italy. Subversive Feelings is a story
about a wounded sense of citizenship, a novel about nostalgic
love for a woman who remained in Italy, and above all about
love for one’s own country, for the way it could be but is not.
Roberto Ferrucci is a writer, journalist, translator, and
radio and TV writer. He has published three novels. A bilingual edition of Subversive Feelings was published by the
prestigious French publishing house Meet.
regole di famiglia
Matteo Sartori works for a movie production company. In
1997 he published the novel Il magro Rio e la minoranza
silenziosa (Frassinelli). This is his second novel.
non piangere coglione
Amedeo Romeo is an actor, film director, playwright,
and author of children’s books. This is his first novel.
red books
isbn edizioni
Omar Di Monopoli
Omar Di Monopoli
Omar Di Monopoli
OF MEN AND DOGS
fonzi’s law
IRON AND FIRE
240 pages | New editi0n: February 2013 | novel
298 pages | 2010 | novel | English sample available
192 pages | 2008 | novel
Ipotesi Cinema (Basilicata Coast to Coast) is shooting a
movie based on the book, starring Sergio Rubini.
Winner of the Edoardo Kilghren Literary Prize
Film rights sold to La voie Lactéee (France)
A trail of violence hits the Gargano region (set in the southern part of Italy). An army of new slaves fights to survive in
immense tomato plantations. Billiard Ball is their rampant
leader, with a terrible mother trailing behind him. Young
Andrej and the beautiful Mariehla are only two pawns in
an atrocious game. The Pelican, the uncontested lord of the
land, reigns over all of them. Then the fire arrives razing it
all to the ground. But in the meantime someone has managed to escape: Kazin, unjustly accused, takes a hostage
and escapes to the North, while four Apocalyptic knights
tread hard on his heels. There will be a showdown. The
vibrant western tension of Uomini e cani returns in a novel
that is equally ruthless but even more contemporary.
UOMINI E CANI
As tense as a thriller, baroque as a cathedral, and violent
as a pitbull’s bite, Uomini e cani is a furious ride into the
black heart of the South. A choral Greek tragedy, an irresistible western. The ancestral balance is broken. The
blood begins to swell up the land.
Omar Di Monopoli lives and works in Puglia. He wrote
the screenplay for La caccia, produced by Edoardo Winspeare. He also wrote a «Western Trilogy» for Isbn Edizioni.
la legge di fonzi
Nando «Manicomio» Pentecoste is about to return to Monte Svevo: a few houses built in the shade of the factories
situated in Taranto and Brindisi, where once some of the
cruelest Corona Unita clans could run about undisturbed.
Pisso and Giordano, young car thieves capable of anything,
and Skùppetta, a dodgy junkyard are waiting for him and
most importantly waiting for him is Giovanni, nicknamed
Fonzi, Pentecoste’s little brother, a sort of hermit who can
awaken forgotten tensions: was it really Manicomio who
committed a dreadful crime five years ago?
FERRO E FUOCO
red books
isbn edizioni
Gabriele Reggi
Biagio Autieri
Paolo Caredda
free us from cops
THE UNUSUAL RUMBA
Other days other trees
192 pages | 2010 | novel
115 pages | 2008 | novel
202 pages | 2009 | novel
English sample available
Proposal for movie production companies available
Film rights optioned
In a parallel and timeless Genoa, the Christmas Trees engage in fierce battles for the survival of the neighbourhoods
they represent. The guardian tree of Marassi, Gustavius,
suffers from a serious illness which infects humans as well.
liberaci dagli sbirri
l’insolita rumba
A substitute teacher at a school in the deep south of Italy
soon realizes he has landed in a doomed village, reminiscent of a Stephen King book or an Italian b-movie, rather
than one of Ignazio Silone’s or Ernesto De Martino’s novels.
The Unusual Rumba is an incredibile story of the Italian
suburbs, recorded live without any sense of disenchantment or superiority; the portrait of lives worthy of being
lived; rich in adventures and opportunities that we have
stopped experiencing for some time now.
Gabriele Reggi graduated from the Accademia delle
Belle Arti. He was a substitute teacher in a town in southern Italy in the early Nineties.
Biagio Autieri was born in Cosenza. He lives in Milan,
where he works with youth on the streets. This is his first
novel.
Altri giorni altri alberi
Paolo Caredda was born in Genoa and has lived in Bologna, London, and Milan. He has directed hybrid television
formats, including mockumentaries and real-life documentaries.
red books
isbn edizioni
Michele Vaccari
Ilaria Bernardini
Gioia Guerzoni (edited by)
italian fiction
THE END OF LOVE
INDIA
la fine dell’amore
Five stories, six reports, three comics
250 pages | 2006 | short stories
192 pages | 2008 | fiction anthology
English sample available
Rights sold to Tranquebar Press (India)
«The end of love has to do with the glasses which move
from six to four and it also has to do with the cheap kitchen
which cannot last for more than two years because it begins
to fall apart and one can see that it is made of nothing.»
Thirteen short stories by a young writer. Something new
about love.
English edition available
213 pages | 2007 | novel
A polymorphous on-the-road-story à la The Chase but with
way more hair gel. From the outermost Italian province to
the Scandinavian forests, a long journey to find Appearance, the rave that never ends, the place where one can
freely be who he/she is not.
Michele Vaccari (1980) was born in Genoa. He recently published Giovani, nazisti e disoccupati (2010), Delia
Murena (2010) and L’onnipotente (2011). This is his first
novel.
Ilaria Bernardini (1977) was born in Milan. Among her
novels: Non è niente (2005), Supereroi (2009) and Corpo
libero (2011).
Eleven stories and three comics explain the life of the new
Indian monster-cities, of the futuristic directional centers of Delhi and of the populous shanty towns of Mumbai,
bringing together the voices of young writers, artists, and
directors committed to confronting themselves with the
weight of tradition.
yellow books
isbn edizioni
Giacomo Papi
booked!
The History of the 20th Century
through 366 mug shots
ACCUSARE
Giacomo Papi (1968) is a journalist and writer. He recently published the essay È facile ricominciare a fumare
se sai come farlo (The easy way to restart smoking, 2011), I
primi tornarono a nuoto (First came back swimming, 2012),
Inventario sentimentale (Sentimental inventory, 2013).
224 pages | New edition: 2010 | Photographic book
English edition available
Rights sold to:
Seven Stories Press (USA) | Granta (UK) | Alba Editorial
(SPAIN) | Denoel (FRANCE)
Looking history in the face. The arrests of hundreds of famous people tell the story of the short twentieth century.
Singers and actors, revolutionaries and mafiosi, serial killers and spies, Heads of State, groups of thieves and whores
are all on display. Frank Sinatra was arrested for having
seduced a married woman, a young Bill Gates for drinking and driving, Martin Luther King for inciting racial hatred. And then, among others, Stalin, Lenin, Jane Fonda,
Al Pacino, Al Capone, Vallanzasca, Hugh Grant, Gramsci,
Pavese, Fidel Castro, Sacco & Vanzetti, Gaetano Bresci
who killed the king of Italy, Aldo Moro put on police record
in his «people’s jail». Each remarkable historical event remains entangled in the net of the mug shot.
«A rogue’s gallery of the great,
the good and Ozzy.»
The Observer
«In a world obsessed with celebrity, Booked! is an irresistible who’s
who of iconic lawbreakers.»
New Statement
yellow books
isbn edizioni
Sandro Modeo
Sandro Modeo
THE Barça
mourinho the alien
The secrets behind the world’s
best football team
208 pages | 2011 | non-fiction
English sample available
Afterword by Irvine Welsh
Foreword by Paolo Condò
Rights sold to:
(SPAIN) | Dom Quixote (PORTUGAL)
| Quality Mark Editora (BRAZIL) | Ediciones 62 (SPAIN/Catalan) | Like (FINLAND) | Motibo Publishing (GREECE)
On the night of May 28, 2011, at Wembley Stadium, Barcelona won the Champions League,
beating Manchester United in the final. But this was not merely a victory in sports; Manchester worked the field masterfully from every angle, but the Blaugrana burst out in a
whole new dimension. An extra dimension, as in mathematics, which can be only sensed,
hidden in the folds of our own portion of universe, and glimpsed in thanks to Barça’s game
play. On that night, Barcelona proved to be mas que un club as never before. From this
perspective, Barça sees the bigger picture the background of every element of its priceless tactics: ball possession and pressing, a compact team and the three forwards’ crossed
lasers. To fully understand the counter-intuitive feature of this galaxy, this book – like its
twin-read Mourinho the Alien – covers subjects which are only superficially remote from
football: from evolutionary biology to physics, developing surprising analogies between
total football and bacteria and antibodies’ behaviour, as well as between futuristic Guardiola’s Barcelona and quantum world.
Sandro Modeo is a football and culture correspondent for Corriere della Sera and The
Guardian. His first essay, Mourinho the Alien (2010) was a big international success.
Irvine Welsh is a novelist and football lover, and he has also written plays, screenplays, and directed several short films.
Paolo Condò is a novelist and a football columnist for La Gazzetta dello Sport.
l’alieno mourinho
192 pages | 2010 | non-fiction
English sample available
Afterword by Irvine Welsh
Foreword by Arrigo Sacchi
Rights sold to:
Planeta (SPAIN)| Dom Quixote (PORTUGAL)| De Bezige Bij/ Thomas Rap
(HOLLAND) | Motibo Publishing
(GREECE)| Domingo Books (TURKEY)|
Ripol (RUSSIA)
Having come to Italy as an alien – a Thing From Another World, to quote the title of a popular
film by Howard Hawks – Mourinho was passively idolized by some and ferociously loathed
by others, but he was almost never understood. This book focuses on his unique persona by
zooming in on little-known or little-studied aspects of his life. First, his affinities with two
Hungarians who lived in the last century who had different experiences in «the art of escape»:
the wizard Harry Houdini, virtuoso of handcuffs, and HH before Helenio Herrera, and the
wanderer Béla Guttmann, the coach who won the Champions League with Benfica and Portugal’s idol when José was a child. Second, the innovative training methods, which mix the most
sophisticated «weapons of persuasion» of social psychology with the advancements in neuroscience in regard to nervous system protection and decision-making training. And finally the
uncommon ability of digging into the people surrounding him, and into himself, for instance
– in the case of Inter – into the fear and nostalgia which paralyzed a whole sector and Inter
supporters, and into the compulsive need of change and victory. At the end of this journey it
will be clear why Mourinho’s uniqueness is in his solitude, a needed and inevitable solitude.
«A 200-page journey that is worth reading if you want to know more both
about football and life in general.» Alfredo Relaño
«Modeo explains what Mourinho’s alien-ness means, with plenty of examples,
quotations, comparisons. Modeo manages to surprise and entertain, with a
book in the best new football writing tradition.» Corriere della Sera
yellow books
isbn edizioni
Alessandro Scotti
Anonymous
chasing the dragon
AGAINST RATZINGER
416 pages | New edition: 2012
224 pages | New edition: March 2011
essay
narcotica
Photographic essay
English sample available
Clandestine worlds, meetings, corruption and violence on the drug traffic routes, in the
most global of all markets. Six years were spent «Chasing the Dragon» among opium
growers and crack houses in Bogotà, on the airplanes of the anti-drug police who spend
every night controlling the Carribbean sea, as well as under the burqa of an elderly female
Afghan heroin addict. A long report which recounts with precision and humanity how drugs
are simultaneously tools of survival, an obsession, a motive for living, goods for exchange,
and the tipping point on the scale of delicate geopolitical equilibria. Without the moralism and heroism of a frontline journalist, Scotti’s story and pictures form an extraordinary,
exciting, painful, and sincere action movie.
Alessandro Scotti is a journalist and a photographer. He has been appointed Goodwill
Ambassador to the UN. His articles and images have been published in many magazines
in Italy and abroad.
A disturbing reportage about internation drugs dealing.
A planetary Gomorra.
contro RATZINGER
Rights sold to:
Seven Stories Press (USA) | Debate
(SPAIN) | Patakis (GREECE) | Nakladatelství Grimmus (CZECH REPUBLIC)
Who actually is Joseph Ratzinger? Five years after its first publication, the first book to offer
a complete and in-depth critical reading of Benedict XVI is back. With Against Ratzinger
we find out about Pope Emeritus’s past, present, and future, thanks to a detailed analysis of
the philosophical and moral implications contained in his messages. The anonymous writer
chronicles Ratzinger’s life, political path, and media exposure; in particular, he considers
his thought in relation to essential themes such as Nazism, homosexuality, faith and reason,
abortion, Evolutionism and Enlightenment, to get to his relationship with his predecessor,
John Paul II. The result is original and smart: a libel that highlights all the shady areas and
inconsistencies of Pope Ratzinger’s doings, thus allowing the reader to thoroughly know
one of the most discussed and powerful figures of the last decade.
The author has chosen to remain anonymous in homage to the libels of the seventeenth
Century. Therefore, the publisher assumes full responsibility for the ideas expressed.
«Against Ratzinger critiques this 265th pope, who was born April 1927 and
became His Holiness April 2005. This booklet analyzes his attitudes toward
everything from abortion to sexual abuse.»
The New York Post
yellow books
isbn edizioni
Stefano Benzoni
Mario Pennacchia
Carlo Antonelli (edited by)
YOUNGSTERS DON’T EXIST ANYMORE
THE DESPERATE LIFE
OF GOALKEEPER MORO
the noughties
i giovani non esistono
128 pages | 2008 | essay
Pictures by Luca Cerizza
This provocative book on the relationships between the elderly, power, and popular culture, casts a merciless eye ont
present-day Italy in the hands of yesterday’s young people.
Stefano Benzoni is a children’s neuropsychiatrist and
psychotherapist and a writer. For Isbn Edizioni he co-wrote
Psychofarmers® and contributed to the non-fiction anthology Gli anni Zero.
la vita disperata del portiere moro
gli anni zero
320 pages | 2009 | non fiction anthology
160 pages | 2011 | illustrated fiction b/w
With a memory by ex-goalkeeper Dino Zoff
The Fifties. Giuseppe Moro’s career as an acrobatic goalkeeper with a penchant for impossible saves, comprising
much of Serie A and some appearances in the national
championship. Betrayed by his temper, he collides with
coaches and managers, until it seems as if there is no place
left for him in the Italian football...
Mario Pennacchia is an Italian journalist and writer. He
collaborated with many newspapers including Corriere dello Sport and Il Giorno. He also has published Gli Agnelli e
la Juventus (winner of the Bancarella Sport Prize in 1986).
An anthology of short illuminating essays written by important journalists, writers and academics. Social networks,
politics and entertainment, the new wars of religion, the
spread of mobile technologies, gay culture, the collapse of
global economy, the new elderly, new immigrants and new
global disasters.
Carlo Antonelli is editor in chief of Rolling Stone magazine italian edition. For Isbn Edizioni he co-wrote Discoinferno (2006).
blue books
isbn edizioni
Massimo Coppola
Tennis Girls
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
240 pages | March 2012
Photographic book |Large format hardcover
With a foreword by Gianni Clerici
We’ve dreamed about them, we’ve loved them, and we’ve
followed their every move on the red clay of the Roland
Garros, the grass of Wimbledon, and the hard court of the
Australian Open. The most beautiful, most captivating,
and the sexiest women tennis players of all time are now
immortalized on paper, destined to live forever in the eyes
and minds of readers. Tennis Girls. A sentimental journey is
a one-of-a-kind look into a world and into a fantasy which
have captured the imagination of entire generations: from
Lea Pericoli to Steffi Graf, touching on Gabriela Sabatini, Maria Sharapova, and Anna Kournikova and our own
Italian beauties, Flavia Pennetta and Camila Giorgi. And
the list goes on — Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters,
Monica Seles...With over 200 pictures of the strongest and
most beautiful women tennis players of all time, and an introduction by Gianni Clerici, this singular volume is sure to
stop the hearts of anyone who loves tennis or the gentle sex.
Massimo Coppola as a filmmaker he has directed La
regola del contemporaneamente, Politica Zero, Parafernalia. His first feature film was Hai paura del buio (2011). For
Isbn Edizioni he co-edited the Illustrated Atlas of Football
’70 and ’80, and the Illustrated Atlas of Italian Television
1984-19.
Gianni Clerici, an ex-tennis player, is one of the most important Italian sports writers today. A great expert on tennis, he was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 2006
and his sport books have been published all around the
world.
blue books
isbn edizioni
Marco Giusti
Lori Sammartino
italian 007
italian sundays
200 pages | 2010 | varia
Photographic proposal available
230 pages | 2009 | photographic book
007 all’Italiana
la domenica degli italiani
With a foreword by Ennio Flaiano
and a note by Maurizio Costanzo
Among the various genres of Italian popular film, «Italian 007» is possibly the least appreciated and least investigated by movie enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of films inspired
by the famous James Bond saga, which were released in Italy between 1964 and 1967 and
then quickly made way for spaghetti westerns and grand American productions.
Marco Giusti is a TV writer, director, and journalist. A film and advertising expert, he has
created a number of Italian TV shows. He currently writes for il manifesto and l’Espresso.
«These pages by Lori Sammartino form a long story in which images from Italian cities and
their inhabitants’ subtle and ever-amazing extravagance take a leading role.».
From Ennio Flaiano’s preface
Lori Sammartino (1924-1971) was a photographer and an artist. Her pictures appear
in many illustrated books.
Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972) was a screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, and
drama critic. He is best known for his work with Federico Fellini.
blue books
isbn edizioni
Massimo Coppola
Tobor Experiment
bianciardi!
TECH STUFF
80 pages | 2008 | book + DVD
Video manual
of electronic music
English sample available
Film and text available
192 pages | 2007 | book+ DVD
English sample available
Inside an old Fiat, along the streets of Milan during the boom, amidst the rubble of Ribolla,
in Grosseto, Tuscany, along the seaside in Rapallo, Liguria, amidst the retired folks. Bianciardi! looks into the Tuscan’s writers real «bitter life» through the voices of his friends
and family.
Ten mini-documentaries which, in short clips, show us the techniques, artists, and the
weirdest tools that make up the history of electronic music. Besides the ten episodes in the
series, there is also an interview with Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as a «do-it-yourself»
software tutorial.
Massimo Coppola As a filmmaker he has directed La regola del contemporaneamente,
Politica Zero, Parafernalia. His first feature film was Hai paura del buio (2011). For Isbn
Edizioni he co-edited the Illustrated Atlas of Football ’70 and ’80, and the Illustrated Atlas
of Italian Television 1984-19.
Tobor Experiment is a sound designer, sound technician, and professor at SAE and
composes music for both movies and TV.
blue books
isbn edizioni
Stefano Benzoni
Pietro Adamo
Carlo Antonelli
Fabio De Luca
PSYCHOFARMERS®
discoinferno
304 pages | 2006 | varia
256 pages | 2006 | non-fiction
English sample available
A complete history of psychopharmaceuticals from when they first appeared to their recent
popular explosion.
History of Dancing in Italy 1946-2006: sixty years of Italian history and customs as seen
through the lens of «dance music».
Pietro Adamo is a teacher of Modern History and a writer.
Carlo Antonelli is editor in chief of Rolling Stone magazine italian edition. For Isbn
Edizioni he has edited The Noughties (2009).
Stefano Benzoni is a child neuropsychiatristand psychotherapist and a writer. For Isbn
Edizioni, he has published Youngsters Don’t Exist Anymore.
Fabio De Luca writes for Rolling Stone and hosts programs on RadioRai.
italian novecento
isbn edizioni
Italian Novecento arose from the need to reconsider
and revivify «contemporary classics», those great books
by great authors that appeared during the 20th century
and were withdrawn from bookstore shelves for various
reasons or were deliberately neglected, perhaps because
of an obsession with the present and present-ness. The
selection was therefore based on topical and vital themes;
although they have reached maturity: since the first edition, these themes are still relevant in today’s society,
which looks very much the same. This series is edited by
Professor Guido Davico Bonino.
Guido Davico Bonino (1938) teaches Theater History
at the University of Turin. He was an editor at Einaudi,
a theater critic for La Stampa and worked for the Italian
public broadcasting service.
Giovanna Zangrandi
Giuseppe Mazzaglia
the real days
A MEMORY OF ANNA PAOLA SPADONI
240 pages | Publication date: April 2012 | novel
Afterword by Marina Zancan
First edition: Mondadori 1953
224 pages | Publication date: March 2011 | novel
Afterword by Silvio Perrella
First edition: Rizzoli 1969
From a science teacher to a partisan courier in a few of days.
Following the armistice of ’43, with the Third Reich’s annexation of Bolzano, Giovanna Zangrandi was stirred to get involved
first-hand in the fight for liberation. This is the Resistance as
it was seen day-to-day, from ground-level and from the inside.
Young and elegant Mr. Savasta, arrives to a provincial high
school to teach French. Disappointed by his colleagues’
flatness and by the middle-aged teachers’ small talk, he
feels helplessly and wildly drawn to his student, Miss Spadoni’s magnificent and overflowing body.
Alma Bevilacqua or Giovanna Zangrandi (1910-1988)
by her pen-name, was originally from Bologna, but was
quickly adopted by the South Tyrol Dolomite region. Among
her novels: Leggende delle Dolomiti, I Brusaz, Il campo rosso
and I giorni veri (which won the Premio Resistenza in 1966).
Giuseppe Mazzaglia (1926) was born in Catania and
now lives in Rome. In addition to this novel first published
by Rizzoli in 1969, he wrote an anthology of short stories,
La dama selvatica, and the novels La pietra di Malantino
and Principi generali.
i giorni veri
ricordo di anna paola spadoni
italian novecento
isbn edizioni
Angelo Fiore
Libero Bigiaretti
Riccardo Bacchelli
The Substitute Teacher
esterina
the tuna knows
il supplente
224 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti
First edition: Vallecchi 1964
The Substitute Teacher is a novel about the discomfort of
a man who yearns to be somebody or at least something,
without success. It pitilessly explores the narrow-mindedness of a provincial community that refuses to accept a
newcomer.
Angelo Fiore (1908-1986) wrote a number of novels,
including Il lavoratore, L’incarico and Domanda di prestito.
His last one, L’erede del Beato, featured an introduction by
Geno Pampaloni.
192 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Eugenio Ragni
First edition: Lettere d’Oggi 1942
First published in 1942, Esterina met with hostile reviews
by the Fascist press, as it proposed a realistic and hypocrisy-free vision of the family, while in those years the regime
propaganda was a staunch supporter and steward of family
values.
Libero Bigiaretti (1905-1993) was born in Matelica.
He moved to Rome where he had to find jobs to pay for his
studies. His published both poetry and fiction, including
Carlone, La scuola dei ladri, and I figli.
lo sa il tonno
250 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Maurizio Cucchi
First edition: Bottega di Poesia 1923
The Tuna Knows is a literary game, that is ironic and funny,
but also a subtle parody of a Bildungsroman, in the style of
a compte philosophique such as Voltaire’s Candide.
Riccardo Bacchelli (1891-1985) became part of the
Florence editorial staff of La Voce under Pratolini’s direction in 1913. He fought in World War I as a volunteer. The
author of numerous novels and short stories, he is particularly appreciated outside Italy.
italian novecento
isbn edizioni
Livia De Stefani
Renzo Rosso
Domenico Rea
THE VINEYARD OF THE BLACK GRAPES
THE HARD THORN
la dura spina
JESUS, SHINE A LIGHT!
gesù, fate luce
240 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Salvatore Ferlita
First edition: Mondadori 1953
352 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Anco Marzio Mutterle
First edition: Feltrinelli 1963
240 pages | 2010 | short stories
Afterword by Domenico Scarpa
First edition: Mondadori 1950
The Vineyard of the Black Grapes is a mafia story set in a
barren and fossilized Sicily, a haze of pain and blood hovering over it. It tells about the rough and ancestral world of
peasants who follow the unrelenting pace of seasons and
speak in proverbs.
A famed pianist in his sixties, Ermanno Cornelis, is back
in Trieste for a concert. But what he finds is a city in disarray, rough and concrete, he cannot deny the decline of his
artistic and physical performance much longer.
Set in Naples and its surroundings, in the time between
Fascism and the departure of the Allies from Southern Italy, these stories describe grieving and weary characters in
their everyday lives. Every one of his stories straddles the
fine line between tragic and comic.
la vigna di uve nere
Livia De Stefani (1913-1993) was born in Palermo.
She wrote her first poem when she was eight. She contributed short stories and poems to a number of periodicals and
newspapers. La vigna di uve nere won the Salento Prize in
1953.
Renzo Rosso (1926–2009) pursued musical studies
from his childhood. In 1951 he moved to Rome, where he
has lived, to work for RAI, the public Italian broadcaster.
He also worked as a playwright.
Domenico Rea (1921–1994) was a factory worker, a
stenographer and a proofreader. He later worked for some
newspapers, including la Repubblica and Il Mattino, as
well as the Italian public broadcasting company RAI.
Gesù, fate luce won the Viareggio Prize 1951.
italian novecento
isbn edizioni
Massimo Bontempelli
Sergio Antonielli
Guido Cavani
the intense life
camp 29
zebio cÒtal
250 pages | 2010 | novel
Afterword by Maurizio Cucchi
First edition: Vallecchi 1919
256 pages | 2009 | novel | English sample available
Afterword by Edoardo Esposito
First edition: Edizioni europee 1949
In 1919, life in Milan is already intense. Italy’s vice-capital
is populated by frenetic and aimlessly wandering silhouettes of characters, portrayed in their frenzied attempt to
go about their activities, whether practical occupations or
mere ego diversions.
Camp 29 is the account of a lesser-known historical event.
During World War II, about 10,000 Italian soldiers were
concentrated in four camps in Yol, at the foot of the Himalayan range.
La vita intensa
Massimo Bontempelli (1878-1960) was a teacher,
journalist, narrator, poet, playwright, critic, and essayist.
His work has been translated into many languages.
Il campo 29
Sergio Antonielli (1920-1982) was a writer and literary critic. His works of fiction include La tigre viziosa, Un
cane e un uomo in più, Il venerabile orango, and Oppure,
niente.
256 pages | 2009 | novel
Afterword by Guido Davico Bonino
First edition: Feltrinelli 1961
In a masterful style, Guido Cavani tells the story of the
black-and-white asceticism of a menacing and ruthless
man who gains the reader’s sympathy in the end.
Guido Cavani (1897-1967) was a poet and fiction
writer from Modena. In 1958 he published Zebio Còtal at
his expense. The book, widely considered his masterpiece,
was re-published by Feltrinelli in 1961 with a foreword by
Pier Paolo Pasolini.
italian novecento
isbn edizioni
Paola Masino
Oreste del Buono
BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE HOUSEWIFE
EASY TO USE
304 pages | 2009 | novel
Afterword by Marina Zancan
First edition: Bompiani 1945
128 pages | 2009 | novel
Afterword by Ermanno Paccagnini
First edition: Feltrinelli 1962
This novel tells the story of the meaningless and shallow existence that women were forced to lead in the mid-1940’s,
and considers the role imposed upon her by society and
family. In her subtly humorous style, which treads between
fairytale and real life, the author draws a metaphysical and
surreal portrait of a pioneering feminism.
A short novel in reverse, describing the most bourgeois of
love triangles and the feeble logic of desertion by someone
who may have chosen to give up love. In Easy to Use, Oreste del Buono takes micro-existences apart and puts them
back together.
Nascita e morte della massaia
Paola Masino (1908-1989) was an author of dramas,
novels and short stories, and wrote for numerous magazines,
such as Il Tempo. Her novels have been translated into
many languages - Monte Ignoso (1931) and Periferia (1933).
Facile da usare
Oreste del Buono (1923-2003) was a writer, literary
translator, editor, and one of the first critics to acknowledge
the aesthetic value of comic strips. He worked for a number
of newspapers and magazines. His work has been translated in English, Spanish and French.