Society Member Francesco Samarini publishes new book on Roth

Francesco Samarini, Philip Roth e l'Italia. Storia di un amore incostante, Longo Editore, 2022. 344 pp., ISBN 978-88-9350-100-2.

The book stems from an observation: Philip Roth (1933-2018), universally recognized as one of the fundamental authors of American literature, seems to be better known (and more admired) in Italy than in the United States. Hence, a few questions. How and why did this situation come about? Have things always been like this? What are the peculiar aspects of Roth’s Italian reception? To address such a vast topic, I decided to take into consideration different aspects: the presence of the writer in the Italian publishing market, his direct and indirect relationships with Italian literature, his acquaintances in the Peninsula, the choices of the translators of his books, the reactions of the public and critics, the representation of Italy in his novels, and more. Philip Roth e l’Italia: Storia di un amore incostante analyzes a large number of documents (unpublished letters, academic essays, journalistic articles, reviews, interviews, literary works of various kinds) to deepen the knowledge of a central figure of contemporary culture; at the same time, the study of his relationship with Italy represents a way of examining the evolution, trends, and contradictions of Italian culture over the last 60 years. Francesco Samarini is as a Visiting International Scholar in the Italian department of Dickinson College. He holds a PhD in Italian from Indiana University, Bloomington (2021), where he worked on a dissertation about the reception of Philip Roth’s works in Italy. Previously, he completed a PhD in Italian literature (2016) at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, with a dissertation on early modern epic, which later became a monograph, Poemi sacri nel Ducato di Milano (2017). He published numerous articles on refereed journals on topics ranging from Renaissance and Baroque literature to the forms of TV seriality.