New York, November 30 - Titles by Italian authors Elena Ferrante and the late Primo Levi have both made it into the top 100 books of the year compiled by the New York Times, it emerged on Monday.
The books in question - The Story of the Lost Child by the elusive Ferrante (a pseudonym), which is the fourth and final volume in her quartet of Neapolitan novels, and the complete works of the Holocaust survivor who committed suicide 28 years ago - have both been translated into English and curated by Ann Goldstein, a New Yorker editor and passionate ambassador on behalf of Italian literature in the United States. Other Italian authors in her portfolio include novelist Alessandro Baricco, poet Giacomo Leopardi, and iconic author, filmmaker and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. The Story of the Lost Child competes in the fiction category alongside Purity by Jonathan Franzen, Submission by French novelist Michel Houellebecq and How to be Both by Scottish author Ali Smith. The Complete Works of Primo Levi, published by Liverlight, instead appears in the non-fiction category. "Twenty-eight years after his death the gathering together of everything that the author published brings into focus the breadth and coherence of his genius," read a brief note accompanying the nomination. Goldstein has won the PEN prize for translation and a Guggenheim prize, as well as recognition from the Italian foreign ministry for her work. Her day job is with New Yorker but she has spent evenings, nights, weekends and holidays bringing Ferrante's books to America even before the success of her Neapolitan quartet. "Books that have been translated rarely receive attention - and when they do it is rare for the translator to be noted," The Atlantic magazine wrote recently. However, the fact that Ferrante has guarded her anonymity so closely has deflected the growing international curiosity about her work onto Goldstein. In Ferrante's world, this dynamic could not be more perfect, The Atlantic said.
