Amaranta Sbardella: "The paperback was born in Barcelona thanks to an Italian publisher."

BarcelonaIn addition to having translated Mercè Rodoreda, Eva Baltasar and Joan Sales to Italian, of tirelessly telling Catalan history and culture from the university and of having participated in numerous events of promotion and dissemination of our contemporary classics - as has recently happened with Montserrat Roig–, Amaranta Sbardella (Rome, 1984) has found time to investigate Barcelona from two perspectives: first she did so with the stories of Naked Barcelona (Comanegra, 2019; translation by Marina Laboreo Roig) and now with the essay Solar, nocturnal and sonorous, translated into Catalan by Xavier Valls Guinovart. The book opens the collection Literary Barcelona by Barcelona City Council, curated by Joan Ferrarons Llagostera, and explores the links between Italian culture and the Catalan capital through literature, the performing arts, film, and publishing.

Is it true that your relationship with Catalan culture began by chance?

— Yes. It was while I was preparing my doctoral thesis at the University of Siena. I had the ambition to approach the rewriting of the myth of Ariadne in all of universal literature, and it was as soon as I ended up locating, in the basement of the faculty library, a copy ofAriadne in the grotesque labyrinth of Salvador Espriu.

Do you remember what edition it was?

— It had yellow covers and the writing inside was very tight...

It had to be the one of the Best Works of Universal LiteratureI see that this collection has been the gateway for many Catalan readers for generations, crossing borders.

— I didn't know anything about the author or Catalan at the time. In fact, during my undergraduate studies I had specialized in Russian, French, and Spanish, and for my thesis I traveled quite a bit to St. Petersburg, Paris, and Barcelona. It was during a stay at the Autonomous University that I studied Catalan independently. I was one of the pioneers in this field, and I was also greatly helped by Gabriella Gavagnin [professor of Catalan philology at the University of Barcelona].

His translation of Espriu was published in 2013. He was not yet 30 years old.

— When they proposed the commission to me I went to Espriu's grave to ask him if I could translate it. And it seemed to me that through a wind he gave me permission. Sotto la attonita freddezza di questi occhi [Passigli Editori] ended up being an anthology with some of the author's best stories.

Was Italy beginning to rediscover Catalan literature?

— It hadn't been long since translations of Rodoreda's works had begun to revive. In 2008, the publishing house La Nuova Frontiera published the translation of Diamond Square by Giuseppe Tavani [1924-2019], and shortly after those ofCamellia Street [2009] and Garden by the sea [2010]. After a few years in which the pace of publications had slowed down, a new wave of translations began, which has been possible thanks to a combination of three factors: there is the role of translators, the work of literary agencies and institutions such as the Ramon Llull, which, in addition to talking about Catalan authors in the works that refer to literary translations from Catalan to Italian is yet to come.

In the essay Solar, nocturnal and sonorous explains that one of the first literary ambassadors of Catalan in Italy was Pier Paolo Pasolini.

— In 1946, Pasolini asked Carles Cardó [1884-1958] to prepare the anthology Flower of Catalan poets, which included authors such as Verdaguer, Maragall and Carner. In the 1950s, Eugenio Montale arrived in Barcelona as a correspondent for the Corriere della Sera and devoted several articles to explaining that Catalan poetry was not a poor literary Cinderella, as it was in Italy. He visited Montserrat, the Set Portes, the Romanesque section of the Museum of Modern Art, and Casa Milà, which he described as "a hive of activity, a temple, and a fortress." He ended up translating Maragall into Italian. He said that Catalan sounds like a dried-out pine cone on fire.

His book is an enjoyable, insightful journey into the relationship between Catalan and Italian culture.

— I trace the links back to the 1888 World's Fair. The first Italians to arrive here were entrepreneurs, who founded hotels, bars, cafés, and also opened vermouth factories such as Martini & Rossi and Cinzano & Co.

An editor was soon installed.

— Emanuele Maucci arrived in Barcelona in 1892 and founded the publishing house that bears his name there.

He defines it as "the hood of books, the Caesar of print runs."

— A publishing house emerged that became one of the largest in the world. It quickly realized that it couldn't focus solely on high literature and that it had to sell books at affordable prices. The paperback was born in Barcelona thanks to an Italian publisher. Maucci was also the first specialist in publishing marketing: he relied on promotion through color posters in bookstores, magazine inserts, and a network of loyal critics. He also had the modernity of not paying translators too much.

Put all together, the data that explains in Solar, nocturnal and sonorous They make us realize that the links between both cultures are constant and important.

— There are many novelists who portray the city of Barcelona at different historical moments: Massimo Bontempelli, Italo Calvino, Germano Lombardi, Pier Vittorio Tondelli... There are poets like Marinetti who are mocked when they visit Barcelona. There are filmmakers like Michelangelo Antonioni who make films like The reporter [1975], with Jack Nicholson. Or actors like Totò: although he rarely left Naples, he made an exception by filming Toto of Arabia at the Esplugues City studios.

We see a photo of Luigi Pirandello with Josep Maria de Sagarra and businessman Josep Canals.

— Pirandello came to Catalonia thanks to Josep Pla, who after spending a long time in Italy recommended this author to Josep Maria de SagarraIn 1923 the first performance ofThe hat of bells, by Pirandello, translated by Sagarra.

A century later you do the opposite: you have translated into Italian contemporary authors such as Eva Baltasar, Pol Guasch and Irene Solà, and also classics such as Death and Spring, by Mercè Rodoreda, and Uncertain glory, by Joan Sales.

— We are in a very sweet moment, but there is still much work to be done. Through the promotional tour for the translation ofCherry season, by Montserrat Roig, I have noticed that Italians are increasingly familiar with Catalan literature. The presentations are packed. One last interesting detail: I have recently started receiving messages from booktubers Italians who, after reading Irene Solà and Pol Guasch, tell me they want to learn Catalan.