Skip to content
Description
By: Eugenio Montale
Fifty autobiographical short stories about childhood, life in Italy before and after World War II, and growing old in Milan by the winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature and one of the most celebrated Italian poets of the twentieth century.
The great poet Eugenio Montale was also a remarkable writer of prose whose stories appeared regularly in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Butterfly of Dinard is a collection of fifty of those stories, pieces about “silly and trivial things which are at the same time important,” whose sprightliness, subtle irony, and conversational ease defy the limits of traditional fiction. Taken together, they form a sort of autobiographical novel, evoking people, objects, and animals dear to the poet, while simultaneously shedding light on the social, cultural, and political events of the day. The book begins with Montale’s childhood in Liguria and goes on to explore his adult life in pre-Fascist Florence and the onset of Fascism. The last part of the book, focusing on his final years in Milan, forms what Jonathan Galassi in his introduction calls “a mosaic self-portrait of the writer himself, a bumbling yet proud, memory-obsessed Chaplinesque antihero, who sees himself as the only surviving, if unwilling, witness to a disappearing world.”
The stories were first published in book form in 1956; Montale added further stories to subsequent editions, culminating in the final 1973 edition. Butterfly of Dinard is the first complete translation of this edition and includes five stories never before translated into English.
Fifty autobiographical short stories about childhood, life in Italy before and after World War II, and growing old in Milan by the winner of the 1975 Nobel Prize for Literature and one of the most celebrated Italian poets of the twentieth century.
The great poet Eugenio Montale was also a remarkable writer of prose whose stories appeared regularly in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Butterfly of Dinard is a collection of fifty of those stories, pieces about “silly and trivial things which are at the same time important,” whose sprightliness, subtle irony, and conversational ease defy the limits of traditional fiction. Taken together, they form a sort of autobiographical novel, evoking people, objects, and animals dear to the poet, while simultaneously shedding light on the social, cultural, and political events of the day. The book begins with Montale’s childhood in Liguria and goes on to explore his adult life in pre-Fascist Florence and the onset of Fascism. The last part of the book, focusing on his final years in Milan, forms what Jonathan Galassi in his introduction calls “a mosaic self-portrait of the writer himself, a bumbling yet proud, memory-obsessed Chaplinesque antihero, who sees himself as the only surviving, if unwilling, witness to a disappearing world.”
The stories were first published in book form in 1956; Montale added further stories to subsequent editions, culminating in the final 1973 edition. Butterfly of Dinard is the first complete translation of this edition and includes five stories never before translated into English.
You may also like
熱銷中 Top Trending
Dog Man 13: Dog Man: Big Jim Begins: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man #13)
Sale priceFrom HK$75.00
Regular priceHK$150.00
In stock
Dragon Masters #27 (正版) Haunting of the Ghost Dragon (Branches) (Tracey West)
Sale priceHK$47.00
Regular priceHK$69.00
In stock
Dork Diaries #15 I Love Paris! (Rachel Renee Russell)
Sale priceHK$67.00
Regular priceHK$112.00
In stock
Dog Man (正版) #11 Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (Dav Pilkey)
Sale priceFrom HK$59.00
Regular priceHK$90.00
In stock
POKEMON: SUPER DUPER EXTRA DELUXE ESSENTIAL HANDBOOK
Sale priceHK$149.00
Regular priceHK$210.00
In stock
Ultimate Football Heroes Series 1 Collection 10 Books Set (Matt & Tom Oldfield)
Sale priceHK$295.00
Regular priceHK$910.00
In stock
Harry Potter (正版)(#1) and the Philosopher's Stone MinaLima Edition (Hardback) (J.K. Rowling)
Sale priceHK$239.00
Regular priceHK$385.00
In stock
Britannica All New Kids Encyclopedia - What We Know & What We Don't (UK)
Sale priceHK$229.00
Regular priceHK$351.00
In stock
Essential English: Spelling Punctuation and Grammar
Sale priceHK$77.00
Regular priceHK$140.00
In stock