Dandelions
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Each year brings a whole new bookshelf’s worth of books about Italy. And, each year, I try to find the latest coffee table books, guidebooks, and novels that my readers will love.
Dandelions [Amazon | Bookshop], written by Italo-Liverpudlian Thea Lenarduzzi, “pieces together [Lenarduzzi’s] family history through four generations’ worth of migration between Italy and England, and the stories scattered like seeds along the way.”
The winner of the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Dandelions was first published in the UK in September 2022. It will be released in the US on May 2, 2023.
Here’s an excerpt:
If words and stories bind, they can divide and isolate too. An immigrant can spend as much time as she likes memorizing basic vocabulary, but her first word is likely to betray her roots: for Italians, there is no getting around the difficult aspirated 'h' of hello - they drop it, unless they are Tuscan, in which case they might overdo it. The English 'r', being flat, or entirely silent, can be problematic too, for a people used to rolling it with brio. For Italians trying to settle in France and Belgium after the Second World War, the 'r' became an alarm bell (again, cruelly present from the first bonjour). In the native argot, Italian immigrants are les ritals, a pejorative that runs together réfugie and italien and hinges on the outsiders trilling their 'y' on the tip of the tongue rather than at the back, à la française. It's the ultimate in-joke: les ritals can't even pronounce what they are. —Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi
Headlines
Texan Princess Evicted from Rome Villa with Caravaggio Ceiling
“A Texan princess has been forcibly evicted from her historic villa in Rome following a court ruling that states that all objects left behind—including a trove of Baroque-era paintings and classical sculptures—should be removed and destroyed.
“The 16th-century Villa Ludovisi, which is famously adorned with a rare ceiling painting by Caravaggio and frescoes by Guercino, has been placed at the heart of a bitter legal battle between Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the second wife of the late Prince Nicolò, and the prince's four children from the prince's first wife.”
More headlines:
Lack of Snow Condemns Italy's Po to a Desperately Dry Summer [AP]
Portofino Introduces €275 Fine for Tourists Lingering in Popular Selfie Spots [Time Out]
Leonardo’s Ferry Left High and Dry by Global Warming and Red Tape [New York Times]
Italy Must Open Up Beach Concessions, EU’s Top Court Says [Politico]
Earth from Space: Rome, Italy [European Space Agency]. The historic centre of Rome, Italy’s capital city, is featured in this image captured on 28 March 2023.
April 25 is Liberation Day in Italy.