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After we published our own recommendations of some of the best books to read for those considering a move to Italy, The Local's readers weighed in with suggestions of your own. , ...ادامه مطلب

If you’re planning on upping sticks and moving to Italy, there are some reads that can help you get a useful insight into the nuances of life in the country. Please tell us your own recommendations. , ...ادامه مطلب

Life in Milan can be pretty chaotic at times, but the city's ‘literary cafes’ are the perfect places to wind down. , ...ادامه مطلب

Rome's Libreria Croce, which shut down in 2011. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP Italy will introduce tax credits for bookshops, with independent stores eligible for the biggest breaks. It’s a bid to help save Italy’s bookshops, which “are at continual risk of closure all across the country,” according to Culture Minister Dario Franceschini. The scheme, which the senate budget committee approved this week, will reduce council, property and waste taxes on bookshop owners. If they don’t own their premises, they can also claim a tax credit on their rent. Independent shops will be eligible for up to €20,000 in tax credits, while chain stores are limited to €10,000. , ...ادامه مطلب

Project Director Rebecca Benefiel uses an iPad to take a photograph of a drawing in Herculaneum. Photo: Ancient Graffiti ProjectNo site in the world has been continually excavated for so long as Pompeii, the city that lay buried after being destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted, until its accidental, ...ادامه مطلب

Europe's refugee crisis is moving from newsprint to the pages of children's books, as writers try to help parents help their kids understand an often disturbing drama shaping their world. Distressing images of African migrants being plucked from heaving seas or the coffin-strewn aftermath o, ...ادامه مطلب

A Twitter account claiming to belong to Anita Raja on Tuesday night "confirmed" media reports that the translator was behind the successful Elena Ferrante novels, sending Italian media into a frenzy. But by Wednesday moing, it seemed that the account was a fake. The account, was created on Tuesday evening, with a tweet saying it would only stay open temporarily to allow for an "explanation".It used the handle @AnitaRajaSta - 'Sta' being an abbreviation for the suame of Raja's husband, writer Domenico Staone - and followed 48 accounts of joualists and news organizations (including The Local Italy). "I confirm it. I'm Elena Ferrante. But this doesn't change anything regarding readers' relationships with Ferrante's books," the account posted, at one minute to midnight on Tuesday evening. It went on to say that the way Ferrante's identity had been 'revealed' had been "gross and dangerous", and said that Raja would not give any interviews regarding the novels. "They are and rema, ...ادامه مطلب

Ferrante gained fame for writing about the working class districts of Naples. Photo: Carlo Raso/FlickrOne of literature's unresolved mysteries appears to have been cracked with the unmasking of the true identity of Italian publishing sensation Elena Ferrante. In its wake, a literary row erupted on Monday over joualistic ethics and writers' right to protect their identities and the personal back stories that may, or may not, inform their work.Claudio Gatti, an Italian investigative joualist, says he has established that Ferrante is a pen name for Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator who is married to a well-known novelist, Domenico Staone.Ferrante's best-selling novels, particularly her Naples-based quartet, have been acclaimed for their intricate, compelling storytelling and insights into the nature of female friendship.Her success has been fuelled by media interest in the mystery over the author's identity with the until-now anonymous Ferrante having granted only a handful of int,elena ferrante,elena ferrante identity,elena ferrante amazon,elena ferrante anita raja,elena ferrante my brilliant friend,elena ferrante books,elena ferrante series,elena ferrante interview,elena ferrante new yorker,elena ferrante book 2 ...ادامه مطلب

An image of a customer meeting a prostitute. Photo: Italian investigatorsA court in Rome has handed down an unusual penalty to the client of an underage prostitute, ordering him to buy her 30 books on the theme of women's dignity, Italian media reported Friday. In addition to a two-year jail sentence, the unnamed man, 35, will be required to give the 15-year-old victim works including novels by Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank's diary and the poems of Emily Dickinson, as well as two feminist-themed films. Judge Paola Di Nicola's ruling follows an investigation launched in 2013 into a Rome-based prostitution ring that pimped two girls aged 14 and 15 in the upmarket Parioli suburb of the Italian capital. The teenagers were lured into the world of sex work with cash which they used to "buy new clothes and the latest mobile phones", reports said, citing investigators. In the 2014 trial of the sex ring's mastermind, who was ultimately jailed for nine years, a judge said the girls were "childre, ...ادامه مطلب

Independet bookstores are refusing to sell the autobiography of a mafioso's son. Photo: Modus VivendiIndependent bookstores across Italy are refusing to sell a book written by Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, the son of a once-feared Sicilian godfather Totò Riina. Riina's book, “Riina Family Life,” recounts what it was like growing up with the country's most infamous boss, Totò Riina, for a dad and has provoked a storm of controversy in Italy. Many people have accused the mafia boss's son - who himself was sentenced to eight years in prison for mafia association - of cashing in on his father's crimes. Now, independent bookstores across the country are refusing to sell the book, especially after Giuseppe Salvatore, 38, was interviewed on a leading chat show by national broadcaster RAI on Wednesday. “The problem is not the interview in itself,” Palermitan joualist Katia Damiano told The Local. “It's that it was an indirect endorsement of a disgusting and shameful book.” Since then, the book has been blocked by several independent bookstores in Florence, Catania and of course, Palermo, where citizens can still remember the dark day's of Toto Riina's mafia empire. “In this bookshop, we don't order or sell Salvatore Riina's book,” reads a printed notice in the window of Modus Vivendi, a popular independent bookstore in central Palermo. In the streets that surround the bookstore, Totò Riina waged a violent mob war in the 1980s and early 1990s, publicly murdering rival gang members, politicians and policemen in the streets. He also assassinated the city's two beloved anti-mafia judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. “Back then violence was so common it almost felt normal,” bookshop employee Fabrizio Piazza Told The Local. “Every day the newspapers carried stories of the war showing photos of the dead.” Salvo Spiteri, the owner of Modus Vivendi, told The Local that the decision not to sell the book was an act of resistance against the mafia and an attempt to improve the im, ...ادامه مطلب