Writer Elizabeth Mc Kenzie and literary translator Michela Martini will be in conversation with Italian writer Giacomo Sartori about his work, including the novel Anatomia della battaglia/Anatomy of the Battle, which they recently translated into English and is being reissued in Italy in March 2025, Sono Dio/I Am God, and Baco/Bug (published in the US by Restless Books).
Free Admission | Registration required
After the presentation there will be a book signing with Giacomo Sartori. Books made available and sold by Libreria Pino.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1958, in Trento (Italy), Giacomo Sartori lives and works between France and Italy. He is an agronomist and soil scientist. He has published eight novels, four collections of short stories, four picture books as well as a collection of poems. In 2023, he wrote a book of essays on agriculture and the relating environmental issues. In the current year, he will release a collection of writings on soil (some of them are already featured on the Massachusetts Review blog).
His novel Baco [Bug] was a finalist for the 2020 Premio Procida Award and for the Gelmi di Caporiacco Award. His novel Fisica delle separazioni [Physics of the separations] was a finalist for the 2024 Premio Chianti.
The American translation of his novel I am God (2018), was selected within the Financial Times Best Books of 2019, and won the 2019 Foreword INDIE Gold Award for Literary Fiction and the 2020 Italian Prose in Translation Award. The translation of the novel Bug (2018) was a finalist for the 2022 Philip K. Dick Award.
Sartori is an editor of the online literary collective Nazione Indiana. He won the Premio Frontiere Grenzen (2011) Award, was finalist for the Premio Settembrini Award (in 2012 and in 2013), and was runner up for the Premio Per voce sola 2013 Award.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
Michela Martini has taught Italian language and culture at Suffolk University, Indiana University, Cabrillo College, and the University of California SC. She co-founded and directed the Dante Alighieri Society of Santa Cruz. Her translations and co-translations from Italian into English and from English into Italian include the work of poets and novelists such as Edoardo Sanguineti, Giorgio Caproni, Gabriella Leto, Patrizia Valduga, Rossana Campo, Emanuele Trevi, Giacomo Sartori, Elizabeth McKenzie, Ellen Bass, Jewelle Gomez and Scott Hutchins. They have appeared in numerous journals and volumes, including The Literary Review, Poetry International, Gradiva, Catamaran Literary Reader, Chicago Quarterly Review, Journal of Italian Translation, Italian Poetry Review, Nazione Indiana, Poesia, Alfabeta 2 and The FSG Book of 20th-Century Italian Poetry.
Elizabeth McKenzie’s novel The Dog of the North was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in fiction. Her novel The Portable Veblen was longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, and received the California Book Award. It was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus, and many others. She is the author of the novel MacGregor Tells The World, a San Francisco Chronicle and Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and Stop That Girl, short-listed for The Story Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Tin House, and others. McKenzie is the senior editor the Chicago Quarterly Review and managing editor of Catamaran.
Michela Martini and Elizabeth McKenzie were awarded a 2023 NEA grant for the translation of the novel Anatomy of the Battle by Giacomo Sartori to be published in 2026.