The Cellist of Sarajevo is Canadian novelist Steven Galloway’s third novel, but only the first to be published in the UK & Ireland. I picked up the novel enthusiastically (it’s beautifully put together, from the elegant cover through to the paging and paper-weight) but also with the slight apprehension that always accompanies a novel that […]
What was Silvio Berlusconi thinking, when he described the newly-elected Barack Obama as ‘young, handsome, and suntanned’, during a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday? If Russian President Dmitry Medvedev knew, his face was giving nothing away, sitting impassively beside the grinning Italian. There are two different perspectives, in Italy, regarding the Prime Minister’s […]
Has Barack Obama had it too easy from foreign correspondents jaundiced by 8 years of George W. Bush? Perhaps, but ready to put things to right is Corriere della Sera journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi, who puts Obama’s foreign policy credentials under renewed scrutiny in today’s newspaper. His main question is, what would Obama have done had […]
During a recent television debate between government spokespersons and students over the much contested educational reform decree, one of the students was briskly interuppted by his governmental interlocutor because he had not addressed her with the customary ‘Honourable’, a title automatically given to members of parliament (much like the British system). Respect for the institutions […]
Following on from Berlusconi’s recent re-positioning of Italy as a developing country, aligning itself not with the industrial giants of Britain, France and Germany in relation to the EU’s 20-20-20 Climate Change initiative but with countries like Poland (and a further 8 nations which have yet to be named), there is speculation* that Italy, troubled […]
A popular arts show in Italy, Che tempo che fa, has appealed to viewers to write in to the show requesting books that, currently out-of-print, they’d like to see re-published by authors. Top of the list is Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. Another surprising entry is Alan Hollinghurst’s recent Booker winning novel The Line […]
The Lega Nord have often been accused of xenophobia – a charge that is too general to hold. The party, which is playing a legislative blinder at the moment, bludgeoning through various reforms as if they personally had the support of the majority of Italians (rather than their actual 8% in both the lower and […]
Is Chuck Palahniuk one of America’s most underrated or overrated novelists? The answer to the question probably revolves around your attitude towards the shocking, because he is without doubt a novelist with the power to churn the stomach (although the reported faintings at readings of his short story ‘Guts’ seems exaggerated to me). Speaking to […]
The Mayoral election in Bologna next year was always going to have a certain national relevance, despite the city’s relatively small size. The very real possibility that a centre-right candidate could be elected by this ‘red’ city would obviously be another blow to Walter Veltroni’s opposition PD party. The relevance of the race was bolstered […]
Right-wing American commentator Edward Luttwak (author of Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, and controversial articles like ‘Give war a chance’ and the heavily criticised ‘President Apostate‘) gave a novel and clear-cut explanation of the credit crunch and its likely effects on the Italian public during a discussion last week on RAI3’s Ballarò. Novel because, unlike most […]
