Born in Turin in 1959, Alessandro Barbero teaches medieval history and military history at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Vercelli. He has published many historical works, which are distinguished by his clear prose and faultless organisation of the principal arguments. Of note are Charlemagne. Father of a Continent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) and The Day of the Barbarians (London: Atlantic Books, 2007).
Most importantly here, he is the author of four novels, one of which, Bella vita e guerre altrui di Mr. Pyle, gentiluomo (Milan: Mondadori, 1995), won the Premio Strega (roughly the Italian equivalent of the Booker) in 1996.
Vagabond Voices has commissioned the translation of his second novel, Romanzo russo. Fiutando i futuri supplizi, which will be published by us under the title, The Anonymous Novel. Sensing the Future Torments, on 8th February 2010. It is the view of many Italian critics and this publisher that this is the best of his works, and should have long since been published in English.
Barbero is not only a novelist and historian, but also a hyperactive commentator and organiser on the Italian cultural scene: he is currently a member of the Management Committee of the Premio Strega and the Editorial Committee of the magazine Storica; he writes for the literary and cultural pages of Il sole - 24 ore and La Stampa, and regularly appears on the television programme Superquark and radio programme Alle otto della sera. He is the editor of Storia d'Europa e del Mediterraneo, which is published by Salerno Editore.
In 2005, the Republic of France awarded Barbero with the title of "Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres".
Allan Cameron
Allan Cameron writes in English and Italian, and has published two novels: The Golden Menagerie and The Berlusconi Bonus, both published by Luath Press but only the first is still in print. He has also translated twenty-five books and has published articles in Reset, Teoria Politica, L’Unità and Renaissance Studies.
Praise for previous books:
"The Golden Menagerie (Luath Press, 2004) is highly rewarding in the richness, precision and humour of its language, the enviable lucidity of its thought and in that classical humanist quality it insinuates, of simultaneous lightness and profundity, a sleight which can alter perception." - Suhayl Saadi, Scottish Review of Books
"Allan Cameron's The Golden Menagerie is a work almost impossible to classify, although it is just possible to fit this marriage of fantastic invention and reflections on the human predicament and our times, ..., into the capacious container called the 'novel'. In some ways it recalls the conversation pieces of Thomas Love Peacock, although the invention is more fantastic. Whatever we call it, it is consistently fascinating and readable, the work of a writer of high intelligence who has a stylish way with words." - Eric Hobsbawm
The Berlusconi Bonus (Luath Press, 2005) "is a profound, intelligent novel that asks serious, adult questions about what it means to be alive." - Martin Tierney, The Herald
"The Berlusconi Bonus is an adroit and satisfying satire on the iniquities of present-day life, from inane consumerism to political mendacity, globalization to the War on Terror. It is both very funny and an extremely astute analysis of the evil results of a philosophy which sings the victory song of extreme free-market economics." - Peter Whittaker, The New Internationalist
Ermanno Cavazzoni
Born in Reggio Emilia in 1947, Ermanno Cavazzoni teaches poetry and rhetoric at Bologna University, and is the author of several novels. Fellini turned his first novel Il poema dei lunatici (1987) into a film, La voce della luna, which in turn led to the English translation published by Serpent's Tail in 1990 as Voice of the Moon.
Sadly that was the last English translation of a fascinating and prolific author, although other less provincial cultures have continued to translate his works. He followed up this early success with Le tentazioni di Girolamo (1991), an extraordinarily innovative novel which we are now translating and publishing almost two decades later using the title The Nocturnal Library. Other works include I sette cuori (1992), Le leggende dei santi da Jacopo da Varagine (1993), Vite brevi di idioti (1994), Cirenaica (1999), Gli scrittori inutili (2203), Storia naturale dei giganti (2007) and Il limbo delle fantasticazioni (2009).
Together with other Italian writers - Gianni Celati, Ugo Cornia, Daniele Benati and Maurizio Salabelle, he founded the magazine Il Semplice, whose brief but productive existence was from 1995 to 1997. According to Cavazzoni himself, this was not at all bad given that none of them were very persevering: they swung from periods of enthusiasm and vitality to ones of uncertainty and melancholy. "But I know that this is not at all unusual; it is called cyclothymia," Cavazzoni says. Well, indeed. Having barely completed its first year, Vagabond Voices is well aware of the problem.
Cavazzoni admits that his books push the novel to its very limits - "like outpourings of the maniacal," he says. "That's how they come to me, you must understand." In the meantime, we will be bringing out The Nocturnal Library on 22 March. We hope that you will read it and be stimulated by its sharp humour and disturbing realities.
Renzo Llorente
Renzo Llorente was born in Brunswick, Maine (USA) in 1965. Since 1998 he has lived in Madrid, where he teaches philosophy on Saint Louis University’s Madrid Campus. Llorente’s academic research centres on issues in social philosophy, ethics, and Latin American philosophy, and he is the author of numerous scholarly papers in these and other areas. His recent work includes “The Amauta’s Ambivalence: Mariátegui on Race,” in Forging People: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in Hispanic American and Latino Thought, ed. Jorge J. E. Gracia and Diego Von Vacano (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010; forthcoming); "Reflections on the Prospects for a Non-Speciesist Marxism" in Critical Theory and Animal Liberation, ed. John Sanbonmatsu (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010; forthcoming); “Marxism” in A Companion to Latin American Philosophy, ed. Susana Nuccetelli, Otávio Bueno and Ofelia Schutte (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); “The Moral Framework of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation: An Alternative to Utilitarianism,” in Ethical Perspectives, Vol. 16, no. 1 (2009); and “Sobre el humanismo especista de Víctor Gómez Pin” in Razonar y actuar en defensa de los animales, ed. Marta I. González, Jorge Riechmann, Jimena Rodríguez and Marta Tafalla (Los Libros de la Catarata, 2008). Llorente is currently working on a study of the moral foundations of Marxism, and preparing an anthology of writings in translation by the Peruvian thinker José Carlos Mariátegui.
Allan Massie
Allan Massie is the author of twenty novels and a dozen non-fiction books. His six novels about the Roman Empire have been widely translated, and have been particularly successful in Brazil. Gore Vidal has defined him as a "master of the long-ago historical novel". His twentieth century novels have been compared by French critics to Balzac and Stendhal, by Muriel Spark to Thomas Mann, and by others to Evelyn Waugh. He thinks such comparisons as pleasing as they are ridiculously exaggerated. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and has been given an honorary doctorate by Strathclyde University.
Praise for previous novels:
A Question of Loyalties: “A brilliant novel, taking in the whole agony of Europe” - Auberon Waugh, The Independent
The Sins of the Father: “A marvellous read, dealing with big themes in an original and striking way” - Nicholas Mosley, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
Shadows of Empire: “An important work. It grips from start to finish” - Muriel Spark
These Enchanted Woods: "The writing is witty and sharply perceptive. Massie is a master of dialogue." - Moira Shearer, The Daily Telegraph
These Enchanted Woods: “Very observant, very funny, and very enjoyable” - William Dalrymple, The Daily Mail
Luciano Mecacci
Luciano Mecacci (born 1946) is professor of psychology at Florence University, and has written widely in his field, although his particular expertise is psychophysiology and the history of psychology. He has worked in Russia and France, and his books have been translated into English, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and German. In 2000 he recieved the Minguzzi Prize for his contribution to psychology, and in 2005 he received an honorary degree from Lima University.
