Dino Buzzati (1906–1972) was an Italian journalist, artist,
and author. A gifted artist as well as writer, Buzzati was the
author of five novels, numerous short stories and poems, a
children’s book, and a comic book, Poem Strip (published by NYRB
Classics).
Lawrence Venuti is a leading translation scholar, editor,
and translator from Italian, French, and Catalan. His
translations have won awards from the PEN American Center, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
"Although relatively little happens—tales of stasis can be like
that—the skill with which Buzzati conjures unease helps
make The Stronghold a remarkably compelling
read." —Andrew Stuttaford, The New Criterion
“Suffused with a sense of uneasy magic and imprecise in location or
time period... Each scene is sinister and strange, Drogo’s spare
and orderly life a counterpoint to his imagination...Venuti’s new
translation deliberately evokes the Italian Fascist regime. The
current rise in authoritarianism is reason enough for a reissue. I
felt I hardly blinked while reading the book and for a long time
afterward.” —Cary Holladay, The Hudson Review
"The Fortezza’s magic is conjured and sustained by Buzzati’s
luscious imagery. Venuti’s meticulous translation projects the
cinematic landscape that surrounds the Fortezza—the same landscape
that Drogo traverses on the way to his new commission." —Sarah
Gear, Full Stop
"For Buzzati, the potential for his story to be “timeless” and
“universal” was there from the beginning. And yet, much as he
resisted it, he could not escape what Venuti calls the “political
unconscious,” something hidden in the dreamlike texture of his
work. The success of The Stronghold can be seen in the extent to
which Venuti has been able to bring these two distinct aspects
together." —Caterina Domeneghini, Los Angeles Review of Books
"That [The Stronghold] has endured across eras and contexts is
often put down to its allegorical openness, unanchored as it is
from a specific time or place, but this does a disservice to the
quality of Buzzati’s writing, the precision of his gaze, and his
artistry in translating that gaze to the page….Today, in the
context of rising authoritarianism globally, Buzzati’s story of
individual struggle against an all-powerful system has once again
become a story of our times.” —Matthew Janney, The Financial
Times
"The Stronghold can feel at times like a deconstruction of one
man’s frustrations, while at others it evokes the ghosts of a
nation’s repressed anxieties. The way in which protagonist Giovanni
Drogo witnesses his life vanish before his eyes is both surreal and
effective, even as the mysteries of the remote facility where he
spends much of his life take the novel into more archetypal
territory. In Lawrence Venuti’s translation, Dino Buzzati’s prose
easily shifts from tactile to hallucinatory and back again."
—Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders
"Buzzati’s most well-known novel, The Tartar Steppe (1945),
receives a fine new translation with an improved title from Venuti.
. . . Buzzati manages to make the reader deeply invested in the
soldiers’ uncertainty and dread, even as he throws down a
blistering critique of fascism. . . . This passes the test of time
with flying colors.” —Publishers Weekly
“Dino Buzzati . . . is one of the few who have come close to
rewriting a whole Kafka parable. [The Stronghold] follows the
style, mood and architecture of Kafka's Castle, the story of man
struggling hopelessly to enter a stronghold in whose depths, could
he but fathom them, lay faith and stability. The difference is that
Buzzati's hero struggles from within the stronghold itself.” —Time
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