ThoughtGallery.org > Message from the Shadows by Antonio Tabucchi: Book Presentation

Message from the Shadows by Antonio Tabucchi: Book Presentation

An evening dedicated to the late Italian writer, critic and translator Antonio Tabucchi, whose books and essays have been translated in more than 18 languages, with writer Rivka Galchen, and Martha Cooley and Elisabeth Harris, two of the translators of Tabucchi’s short stories collection: Message from the Shadows (Archipelago Books).

These twenty-four timeless stories in Message from the Shadows sift through Antonio Tabucchi’s shadow world. Here, characters step into new dreams with ease, open their mouths to swallow the sky, and idle whales ponder the fragile state of mankind. At times, Tabucchi’s world spins toward a single fate: a young boy’s lament is said to gather eels to the shore, or a woman in a cotton dress sings, “I was left with a handful of air” and a young man follows her curious echo. In crackling, tender prose, Tabucchi illuminates the small joys and laments of ordinary people. In these stories, time staggers, straddling the narrow gap between dream and reality. With each brilliant glimpse, we find ourselves examining trees, evening shadows, train journeys, and wrinkled faces of a shared world with fresh eyes.

“It’s difficult to say what my shadow world is made of and what it means. It’s like a dream you know you are dreaming, that’s where its truth lies: in its being real beyond the real. Its structure is that of an iris, or rather of fleeting gradations, already gone while still there, like time in our lives.” – Antonio Tabucchi

Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa in 1943 and died in Lisbon in 2012. A master of short fiction, he won the Prix Médicis Étranger for Indian Nocturne, the Italian PEN Prize for Requiem: A Hallucination, the Aristeion European Literature Prize for Pereira Declares, and was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. Together with his wife, Maria José de Lancastre, Tabucchi translated much of the work of Fernando Pessoa into Italian. Tabucchi’s works include The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico (Archipelago), The Woman of Porto Pim (Archipelago), Little Misunderstandings of No Importance, Letter from Casablanca, and The Edge of the Horizon (all from New Directions).

Rivka Galchen is an award winning fiction writer and journalist, whose work appears often in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The London Review of Books and The New York Times. She is the author of three books: Atmospheric Disturbances (Novel, FSG, 2008), American Innovations (Short Stories, FSG 2014) and Little Labors (Essays, New Directions, 2016).











When: Wed., May. 15, 2019 at 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: Italian Cultural Institute
686 Park Ave.
212-879-4242
Price: Free
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An evening dedicated to the late Italian writer, critic and translator Antonio Tabucchi, whose books and essays have been translated in more than 18 languages, with writer Rivka Galchen, and Martha Cooley and Elisabeth Harris, two of the translators of Tabucchi’s short stories collection: Message from the Shadows (Archipelago Books).

These twenty-four timeless stories in Message from the Shadows sift through Antonio Tabucchi’s shadow world. Here, characters step into new dreams with ease, open their mouths to swallow the sky, and idle whales ponder the fragile state of mankind. At times, Tabucchi’s world spins toward a single fate: a young boy’s lament is said to gather eels to the shore, or a woman in a cotton dress sings, “I was left with a handful of air” and a young man follows her curious echo. In crackling, tender prose, Tabucchi illuminates the small joys and laments of ordinary people. In these stories, time staggers, straddling the narrow gap between dream and reality. With each brilliant glimpse, we find ourselves examining trees, evening shadows, train journeys, and wrinkled faces of a shared world with fresh eyes.

“It’s difficult to say what my shadow world is made of and what it means. It’s like a dream you know you are dreaming, that’s where its truth lies: in its being real beyond the real. Its structure is that of an iris, or rather of fleeting gradations, already gone while still there, like time in our lives.” – Antonio Tabucchi

Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa in 1943 and died in Lisbon in 2012. A master of short fiction, he won the Prix Médicis Étranger for Indian Nocturne, the Italian PEN Prize for Requiem: A Hallucination, the Aristeion European Literature Prize for Pereira Declares, and was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. Together with his wife, Maria José de Lancastre, Tabucchi translated much of the work of Fernando Pessoa into Italian. Tabucchi’s works include The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico (Archipelago), The Woman of Porto Pim (Archipelago), Little Misunderstandings of No Importance, Letter from Casablanca, and The Edge of the Horizon (all from New Directions).

Rivka Galchen is an award winning fiction writer and journalist, whose work appears often in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The London Review of Books and The New York Times. She is the author of three books: Atmospheric Disturbances (Novel, FSG, 2008), American Innovations (Short Stories, FSG 2014) and Little Labors (Essays, New Directions, 2016).

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