Requiems & Nightmares: Selected Short Fiction of Guido Gozzano
Translation by Brendan and Anna Connell
Release Date: May MMXII
The Turin born Guidio Gozzano was the first and finest representative of the Crepuscolari, the poets of the Twilight. Before his tragically early death from consumption at the age of thirty five he produced two short volumes of verse
La via del rifugio
and I colloqui
, the latter rendered into English as The Colloquies , which quickly became renown for their quietly perfect evocations of nature, melancholy, tenderness and nostalgia.
But unknown to most English speakers Gozzano also wrote short stories, conte cruels influenced by Poe and Maupassant and aesthetic prose nightmares; both of which display the same delicate crepuscular style and sense of tragic absurdism.
Requiems & Nightmares collects together the best of these tales and presents them to the Anglophone reader for the first time.
Within these pages the reader will find
The True Mask
, the bizarre fate of a promising young artist whose works grow too close to nature; A Romantic Story
, a Gothic tragedy and The Soul of the Instrument , a Symbolist fairy tale after the manner of Lorrain and Wilde, along with other morbid and fantastic pieces. An exquisite item for those interested in Italian poets of the early twentieth century and the various literary movements which bloomed in that country in the years following the Fin de siècle.
CONTENTS:
Introduction by Brendan Connell
The Real Face
A Romantic Story
Alcina
The Benefits of Zarathustra
A Dream
The Soul of the Instrument
The Altar of the Past
Bela Madamin
Pamela Films
Please note that this list is tentative and subject to revision
Requiems & Nightmares is to be a sewn and jacketed hardcover limitedto 250 copies
The price shall be £30 including postage and packaging worldwide