BookTalk introduces readers to a carefully chosen, provocative selection of novels for reading and informal discussion, considering the author’s writing techniques and the character’s personal journeys. Readings include translations of books from other countries and cultures in the search for fictions that illuminate the lives and understanding of those from all across the globe.
This class focuses on The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan (2021) by Domenico Starnone, English translation in 2024 by Oonagh Stransky. This short Italian novel about childhood love, death, and memory is set in Naples in the 1950s. At the beginning of the fiction, the narrator is eight-years old and obsessed with the Milanese girl across the way and the underworld, including the myth of Orpheus. He resents his devoted yet uneducated grandmother who had nurtured his imagination. The girl assumes mythical immortal status after her death through the narrator's poetry and writings in the style of Dante.
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