Fremmede jeg kjenner – La straniera, Claudia Durastanti‘s first attempt at writing about the story of her family, brings together multiple strands and tensions of identity: migration, disability, class, feminism. In a conversation (in English) with translator John Grande, the author will focus also on the Italian literary landscape that shaped her.
The event is part of the program of initiatives designed for the Week of the Italian Language in the World (Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo) .
Claudia Durastanti is an Italian writer and translator born in Brooklyn (1984). She is the curator of an Italian music column in the Internazionale magazine and collaborates with the newspaper La Stampa’s literary magazine Tutto Libri. Italian fellow in Literature at the American Academy in Rome and one of the founders of the Italian Festival of Literature in London, Durastanti was awarded the Premio Mondello Giovani for her first novel Un giorno verrò a lanciare sassi alla tua finestra (2010). Since then she has published several novels: A Chloe, per le ragioni sbagliate (2013), Cleopatra va in prigione (2016), La straniera (2019, shortlisted for the prestigious Premio Strega) and Missitalia (2024). Her works have been translated in 25 countries, including Norway. From 2022 she has been curating La Tartaruga, the editorial series acquired by the publishing house La Nave di Teseo in 2017.
John Grande has a long standing experience in translating, fiction and non fiction, both from English and Italian. In 2022 his translation of «La straniera», Durastanti’s first book translated into Norwegian, came out. The same year Grande was nominated for the Rosettaprisen for his translation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.
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The 24th Week of Italian Language in the World will be celebrated in October. The initiative is held under the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic. The theme this year is “The Italian language and books: the world between the lines”, and it will explore the role of books as a vehicle for Italian language, culture and values.
