Author:Dimitri Vittorini
This second volume of Italian Short Stories, with its parallel translations aims - as the first volume did - to exemplify the richness and variety of Italian writing of the twentieth century. In this volume, however, some of the language used is a little more advanced and the translations slightly less literal. Moravia and Calvino, both well known to British and American readers, appear again along with Italo Svevo, Comisso, Vittorini, Rigoni - Stern, Fenoglio and Pasolini so that the literature of both Rome and the provinces is fully represented. There are also discussions of the less familiar words and dialect expressions in the Italian text.
The Scots tongue, like most of the world's minority languages, is under pressure and Billy Kay in this excellent and cogent survey draws together the strands of our concern
—— Daily ExpressKay is the best writer on his own language I have read since Burchfield on English; his book should be put in schools, for it is capably seditious
—— The HeraldMoving, delightful, even inspiring
—— Edinburgh ReviewIt is not the kind of dry academic tome so cherished by linguistic nitpickers, but a bright, radical examination of the language which is at the heart of our existence
—— Aberdeen Press and JournalA fresh and invigorating overview of a fascinating subject
—— Stirling ObserverWell written . . . provocative
—— The New York TimesAttuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship, Abley proves a deft social anthropologist
—— The Daily Telegraph