download rights list (pdf)

Donzelli editoreRights list

Spring 2017

Saggi. Storia e scienze sociali, Forthcoming (April 2017)Pp. 250 € 29,00All rights available

Saggi. Storia e scienze sociali, Forthcoming (March 2017)Pp. 220 € 27,00All rights available

Angelo VenturaIntellectuals and Fascism

«The attitude of intellectuals in the face of Fascism is a complexand sensitive issue, that touches the most susceptible nerves ofnational awareness, which is reluctant to deal thoroughly with thisdisturbing period in its history». Thus wrote Angelo Ventura –one of the most authoritative historians of the Italian secondpost-war era – suggesting the link connecting the essays of thisposthumous volume. Fascism in fact involved «the collectiveresponsibility of an entire population, but first and foremost ofthe intellectual elites, to whom the privileges of culture and socialstatus denied those margins of innocence that belonged tocommon people». For Ventura, it was a question of penetratinginto the creases of that complex relationship between culture andpolitics of which Fascism wished to become the herald: «We needto immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of an era, to understandand overcome its silence and repressions, and the deceptions of awretched memory, through which two generations of intellectuals– the Great War and its aftermath generation, and the one thatgrew up under the regime – reviewed their experience of the twodecades of Fascism». The theme regards the boundary betweenFascism and anti-fascism: Ventura’s glance is always focused onmeasuring the distance, or the proximity, between ideology andaction.

ANGELO VENTURA (1930-2016) was Professor of Contemporary Historyat Padua University. He published with Donzelli Per una storia del terrorismoitaliano (2010) and Il fascismo e gli ebrei. Il razzismo antisemita nell’ideologia e nellapolitica del regime (2013).

Luca FalsiniCaporetto on TrialCaporetto is still considered the most painful and symbolicmilitary defeat in Italian history. The attack by the Austrian-German troops left the Italian army annihilated, and followingthe first bitter fighting it disbanded and was forced to retreat.From then on, the enemy divisions advanced withoutencountering any resistance. The Italian soldiers killed were11.000, those captured 300.000; and an even greater number ofcivilians was forced to flee from the occupied territories. Thisrout shocked the whole country. How was such a huge disasterpossible? The new government was forced to establish anInquiry Committee to assess responsibility for the defeat, butthe documents from that investigation were immediately madetop secret. The author of this book has been the first to studythem in their entirety, thanks to the discovery of a completecopy, preserved among the personal papers of a minutes-secretary within the Committee. This book is therefore based onentirely new records, from which new elements about theresponsibilities of the statesmen and generals in command,Badoglio in the first place, emerge. It features faults andinabilities, which the Committee highlighted in the course of itsproceedings, but which were then kept quiet in the formalreport due to political advisability. This book reaffirms thecentral role of Caporetto not only in the history of the GreatWar, but also as a factor of acceleration for the authoritarianprocesses which led to the rise of the fascist regime.

LUCA FALSINI, PhD in Contemporary History, is an official at theItalian Lower Chamber.

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

Saggi. Storia e scienze sociali, Forthcoming (April 2017)Pp. 350 € 30,00English rights sold to Palgrave Macmillan.English text available

Saggi. Storia e scienze sociali, Forthcoming (April 2017)Pp. 180 € 24,00All rights available

Luciano BrancaccioCamorra clansThis book reconstructs Camorra clan-training circuits fromWorld War II to the present day. The emphasis is placed on thecontexts in which leaderships and violent environments areformed, with differentiated organising aspects and action logics,linked to historical conditions and the opportunities offered bymarkets. The establishment of mafia power takes place primarilyon the basis of two factors for success: family and commercialenterprises. If we analyse the sequence of Camorra formationswithin the criminal scenario, we may notice a structure based onnetworks of relationships, business alliances and entrepreneurialpartnerships, rather than on strictly defined groups. Processes foremerging are just as important within the Camorra, if not more,than reproduction mechanisms for organised groups over time,compared to other mafias. Especially within the urban context, itis possible to notice the high transience of groups and thecontinual birth of new formations. All this depends on historicalphases and on the characteristics of markets and territories.Conditions for group instability feature transition phases inCamorra balances, questioned leaderships, more complexorganisational forms depending on external factors, less clearboundaries, but not less power. The book offers a newperspective, by shifting the focus from a criminology approach tothe social and market contexts in which leaderships and cartelsleading to an organised group in the true sense are shaped.

LUCIANO BRANCACCIO teaches Urban Sociology and Social, political andcommunication networks at the Social Sciences Department of the“Federico II” Naples University.

Alessandro PortelliThe city of steelA pioneering work in oral history, this book tells the story of therise and fall of the industrial revolution and the apogee andcrisis of the labor movement through an oral history of Terni,a steel town in Central Italy and the seat of the first largeindustrial enterprise in Italy. This story is told through acombination of stories, songs, myths and memories from over200 voices of five generations, woven with a wealth of archivalmaterial. Through a masterful use of his favourite sources –oral testimonies – with this synthesis book Alessandro Portellicompletes a historical research of great breadth, pursued over aspan of forty years. It is the portrait of two centuries of an Italymoving from its rural universe to a post-industrial one, throughthe historic and ephemeral, complicated and, in its way,exemplary history of the industrial revolution and its cultures.Following this tale, punctuated by the voice of its protagonists,at first we thus observe the formation of a central industrial rolewhich seemed invincible, and then its decline, marked bysystematic dismantling, piece after piece. And this choral frescotakes form through the timely and minute, powerful and precisedetails of oral history, of personal memories, of everyday life,which propel us backwards to the Risorgimento and the forgingof the nation, and at the same time forwards, towards anebulous and unfathomable global future.

ALESSANDRO PORTELLI is considered among the founders of oral history.He taught Anglo-American Literature for a long time at the University ofRome, and Oral History at the most distinguished American universities.In 2015 he was awarded the prestigious Dan David Prize, in Tel Aviv.

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

Saggine, 2017Pp. 120 € 16,00All rights available

Virgole, Forthcoming (April 2017)Pp. 200 € 23,00

All rights available

Bernardino Fantini e Fabrizio RufoThe code of lifeThe concept of information in Science: philosophical andethical aspects

Perceived over recent years mainly due to the technologicaldevelopments it has made possible, ‘molecular’ revolution has hada formidable conceptual and philosophical impact, for it hasprovided an answer to the classic paradox of the biological beliefof an existence of natural objects endowed with a project, a planor programme, as an exclusive result of evolution by naturalselection. Today, after a profound process of theoretical andphilosophical elaboration, hereditary patrimony is considered atext written in a universal code, the genetic code, a text that ismodified by evolution through natural selection, and guides thedevelopment and behaviour of all living systems. The novelty ofthis molecular explanation has enabled the dissemination ofpowerful metaphors, some of them new and some others quiteancient, like the one of the “book of life” used today to describegenomes, a book which is read and interpreted in order to buildstructures and ensure functions in living systems, a book whichcan also be modified and rewritten, thanks to molecular andgenomic techniques, thereby altering the species’ heritage,including humans. These theoretical changes require carefulconsideration, because of their cultural significance and ofpossible ethical consequences.

BERNARDINO FANTINI (1947) is Professor of Medical History inGeneva and fills the role of Director of the Institut d’Histoire de laMédecine et de la Santé. FABRIZIO RUFO (1966) teaches Bioethics at the University of Rome. Hehas been scientific advisor at the European Parliament and acollaborator of the Centre for Historical Research on Public Health –WHO in Geneva.

Andrea MecacciAfter WarholPop, Post-modernism, Widespread Aesthetics

The contemporary has experienced three major aestheticisationprocesses: Pop (from the ‘50s to the e’70s), the Post-modern(from the ‘70s to the late ‘80s) and Widespread Aesthetics (fromthe ‘90s up to today). This study identifies some decisivemoments in such passages, in which reality was conceived andexperienced essentially as an aesthetic construction. Pop culture,which finds its spearhead figure in Warhol, represented theculminating aesthetic expression of late industrial civilization,conferring a final outline to “the late 20th century”: aestheticsunderstood as symbolic consumption. This extreme port-of-callin modernity flows into the next phase of Post-modernism, inwhich the most diverse practices fit within a huge simulation andhybridisation strategy: kitsch, the aesthetics of fakes, quotations,the cult of appearance. In rolling out a continuous erosion ofevery cultural hierarchy, Post-modernism has opened the doorto a post-historical phase for aesthetics, increasingly lesstraceable in art and increasingly more present in the experiencesof everyday life. Thus, a third stage is reached, WidespreadAesthetics, which is the aesthetic dimension of globalisation, inwhich aestheticism basically means that even aesthetics are notconceived and experienced as being aesthetic.

ANDREA MECACCI tteaches Aesthetics at Florence University. Hispublications include: Introduzione a Andy Warhol (2008), L’estetica del pop(2011) and has edited America by Andy Warhol (2009).

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

Virgole, Forthcoming (April 2017)Pp. 220 € 23,00All rights available

Saggi. Arti e lettere, Forthcoming (September 2017)Pp. 350 € 35.00

All rights available

Francesco de Cristofaro & Marco Viscardi (ed. by)The bourgeois makes the worldAccording to some, the world is a library; but a library is not anordered place, rather an attempt, an opportunity, a challenge toorder. The bourgeois fashions the world in front of his books, buthis books look at him, they seem to harass him and provoke him tothe point of destroying his vision of the world. This volume returnson the complex issue of the bourgeoisie and its imagery, startingfrom words that have described this mobile and unclassifiable class.To this end, the editors have selected a small amount of texts relatedto the general theme (from Defoe to Zola, from Verga to Roth) andhave tried to match them in a daring manner. Thus, Moliere’sbourgeois gentleman has acted with Scarpetta’s fake aristocrats,Tristram Shandy’s humorous silhouette has been sucked intoDostoyevsky’s Underground, Thackeray’s braggarts have duelledwith Conrad’s, and so on. The result is a book that intends to be ameeting point between far cultures, beyond the depressingcompartments of disciplines. The many authors in this book haveset out on the trail of this strange animal, the bourgeois, who hasinformed the modern era of his presence for over two hundredyears. They have followed him along different, multiple paths,without ever really managing to capture him, but always catching afragment, a shard from an endless prism bringing us back to whatperhaps we know less: our own face. Between Literature, Art,culture this book is a pleasent and deceptive journey across theliterary wonderland of classics.

The essays authors include Francesco Fiorentino, Romano Luperini,Arturo Mazzarella, Stefano Manferlotti, Giuseppe Montesano, FrancoMoretti, Matteo Palumbo, Antonio Prete, Toni Servillo and Elio DeCapitani.

Antonio FanelliCounter-melodyMaybe revolution isn’t made by music, but much of theantagonistic spirit widely spread among the working classes andamong the younger generations has expressed itself throughmusical languages. There are songs and musical genres that havestrongly characterised various stages of our recent history, tothe point of scoring collective memory deeply. But littleattention has been paid to the production, distribution andreception of the music which has accompanied moments ofpolitical tension and cultural clashes. There is a vast amount ofwidespread practices and experiences, outlining a sort of real“counterpoint” in Italian history. The path traced in this bookstarts with an analysis of the social and political songs of whatGramsci called “the subaltern classes”; it continues with eventsregarding groups and social movements that opposed masshomologation, trying to combine cultural experimentation andpolitical activism; and it reaches new formats for expressingsocial conflict in the era of rap and community centres, with theinvention of novel sounds interweaving a rediscovery of thehistorical heritage of fighting songs with a reinvention ofdialects and local identities. The creativity of social groups inconflict with official culture is reconstructed by means of ajourney through the vicissitudes of the blue-collar movement,social movements and youth cultures, outlining an originalreinterpretation of Italian cultural history.

ANTONIO FANELLI, a PhD in Anthropology, has carried out fieldresearch in Molise and in Tuscany, regarding the themes of peasanttraditions, popular music and migrations.

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

Album, Hardcover, 2016, pp. 104, € 22,00All rights available. English text available

Lucia ScuderiAll the tummies in the WorldIf there is a mystery which has always fascinated all the childrenin the world, it is how baby animals are born. This is why LuciaScuderi has thought of a book which stages their curiosities likea small theatre, and the answers to satisfy them. This is an albumwith 24 surprises: on every page small readers will see a scenespreading over three pages under their eyes, with a flap thatopens like a curtain and reveals the answer to the question thatthe small protagonist of the book asks a different animal eachtime: «Have you got a baby in your tummy?». Answers will begiven by 24 animals selected by Lucia Scuderi amongst the mostcurious cases existing in nature, so that in addition to thesurprise offered by the game of flap-pages, the small reader willlearn a whole lot of things on the differing manner each animalhas for birthing its young. A surprise book, which is anopportunity at the same time for discovering lots of littlecuriosities about nature and animals. And the bigger readers willlearn too, parents included, and will take part in the game withtheir children… The right book for every age: for tiny-totanimal lovers, for older kids attracted by the discovery of nature,gently gestating mothers, parents who wish to prepare their firstchild for the birth of a little sibling, and all the familiesinterested in discovering the many different ways for bringingabout maternity and paternity.

LUCIA SCUDERI lives and works in Catania. She writes and illustrates childrenbooks for several publishing houses, in Italy and abroad. Among the manyawards she received is the Andersen Prize in 2013 as «Miglior illustratrice». ForDonzelli, she wrote The Garden of Wonders and illustrated The Complete FairyTales by Luigi Capuana

Donzellieditore-ForeignRightsHighlights

The illustratorwill be at

Donzelli’s stand(26 B21) on April, 4from 15.30 on

Album, Hardcover, forthcoming 2016, pp. 64, € 20,00All rights available. English text available

Lucia ScuderiThe Garden of WondersThere is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, which hasmany tales to tell, made of flowers and leaves, fruits andfragrances. Thanks to its climate, its soil fertility and theagronomic talent of its inhabitants, Sicily has indeed been theideal cradle for the most characteristic plants of Mediterraneanflora for centuries. Seeds, as well as people, their language andtheir traditions, have travelled since ancient times from oneshore to the next of the mare nostrum, and have taken root inthe shadow of the largest volcano in Europe. As in a preciousgreenhouse made of paper and colours, Lucia Scuderi, anauthentic Sicilian illustrator and author, recreates akaleidoscopic portrait gallery of the main Mediterraneanornamental plants in this large-format album. And for each ofthem, she has collected curiosities, customs, recipes, medicinalpractices and botany tips that make these pages a true garden inwhich to get lost, following the most original and unfamiliarroutes. From green fingers to gourmets, through the youngerreaders who like her children's books, Lucia Scuderi is able toenchant every type of reader.

LUCIA SCUDERI lives and works in Catania. She writes and illustrates childrenbooks for several publishing house, in Italy and abroad. Among the manyawards she received is the Andersen Prize in 2013 as «Miglior illustratrice». ForDonzelli, she wrote All the tummies in the World and illustrated The Complete FairyTales by Luigi Capuana

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

Album, Hardcover, forthcoming 2017, pp. 64, € 22,00All rights available

Alessandra Ballerini & Lorenzo TerraneraDouble FearWith two tales by Fabio Geda and Marco AimeMigrants and fear: an inextricable pair. Into the eyes of thosewho arrive, whatever age they are, we see the terror of what theyhave already experienced, but also the fear of what awaits them.They are afraid of us. At the same time, their feeling is mirroredby our own: we are afraid of them, of the mystery hidden intheir gazes, but also of their hopes and of their desperation.Moreover, we are scared by our inability to help them. Thisdouble fear is portrayed in this special picture book, written byAlessandra Ballerini and illustrated by Lorenzo Terranera, twoauthors who have always been committed to the cause (and thedefense) of civil and human rights. Ballerini is a lawyerspecialized in foster care for unaccompanied children and in theprotection of outcasts and victims of violence, while Terranera,as an illustrator, painter and stage designer, has been working formany years with international institutions such as Unicef,Amnesty International and UNO. Ballerini gives voices to thestories of the children, women and guys she has known anddefended during her life, following their arrival in Europe.Terranera, with his original style, provides a face and a contextto those stories, giving life to illustrations enlivened by a peculiardreamlike touch. The aim is to portrait hospitality and life incommon as a “possible utopia”, able to spread positive andconstructive energies. On the other side of the book, anotherstory is told: that of us, people living on the comfortable side ofthe world, who look at the newcomers with different attitudes,someone scared, someone outstretched to give a hand. Withouthypocrisy, the two reading paths put this double scare on thescene, arriving to meet at the centre of the book, on an idealbridge where all the fears can be destroyed. Ten stories for smalland big readers who are open to admit their own fear in orderto overcome it.


Fiabe e storie, Hardcover, 2016, pp. 586 € 35,00All rights available

Thousand and One NightsThere is no book worldwide more fascinating than the Thousandand one nights. But how many know it in its original version? Howmany have really read the most ancient book which capturedthat great stream of oral narration for the first time within awritten Arab text, which these tales had sprung from? It wasnecessary to wait for the end of the past century, and for ArabistMuhsin Mahdi’s ability, in order to be able to reconstruct thefoundation nucleus of those Arab nights, harking back to asingle 14th-century Syrian manuscript, through comparativework on the manuscripts. Ten years ago, Donzelli published thefirst, and only, translation into Italian following that originalrestored Arab manuscript. In the wake of the critical and publicacclaim garnered by that edition, Donzelli is proposing thiswonderful book once again, adding the aspect that was stillmissing: an accompaniment of illustrations by an author – orrather a lady author – offering Italian readers a new viewpointon Arabian nights imagery, disconnecting it from thosestereotypes which the long lasting tradition of «orientalism» hadboxed it in. Almost as a counterpoint to Shahrazad’s authenticvoice, readers will find images of a world populated by men andwomen in flesh and bone – sultans, emirs, viziers, merchants,Moorish slaves, handmaidens – plus fantastic and magical, eviland benevolent creatures– ifrits, devils, magicians. A populationof characters moving between the bazaar, the souk, thehammam, ports and cities plentiful in trading, spices,unbounded wealth, and a mysterious nature, where camels,elephants, peacocks, monkeys, lions and every other exoticspecies wander.

MUSHIN MAHDI (1926 – 2007) was an Iraqi-American islamologist andarabist. He was a leading authority on Arabian history, philology, andphilosophy.CINZIA GHIGLIANO (1952), started her carreer by drawing comics for adults.She is the author of a host of children’s books, history and science texts. Herdrawing are exhibited periodically at various shows. With the picture book Lei,she won the Andersen Prize (2016).

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights



La leggenda del

Quando gli adiv div

lo zodiaco cinese

annivennero animalvennero animal li li

Arianna Papini

Album Hardcover, 2016, pp. 22 € 22,00All rights available. Chinese text available.

Arianna PapiniThe Legend of the Chinese ZodiacIt is said that one day, thousands of years ago, Buddha felt aninkling of his end on Earth. Knowing he would depart, hedecided to leave the world in order by giving a name to the years.But Buddha did not know where to start. So he asked to thewisdom of animals, and thus it was that he decided to conveneall those who populated the immense territory of China,sending three faithful messengers to search for them. The firstone reached the mouse and the cat, who was about to have anap, so he asked the mouse to wake him up when it was time toleave. In the meantime, the messengers went to summon thetiger, the dragon, the hare, the ox, the sheep, the serpent, thedog, the monkey, the horse and the cock. They finally got to thepig, and summoned him as a reserve, because one neverknows… Once all the animals were gathered, their long journeytowards the Buddha began. The tiger was the first to set out,while the last one was the mouse, who had always been enviousof the cat’s beauty, and did not wake him up. And therefore thecat was switched with the pig, which took its place clumsily atthe back of the group. When they were almost there, the mouse,who was weary, asked the ox to climb on its back, but as soonas he glimpsed the Buddha’s dwelling, he leapt off and got therefirst. Thus, Buddha assigned his name to the first year. The oxarrived just afterwards, but was consoled by the news that thesecond year would take its name. Then all the others arrivedhaphazardly and therefore Buddha finally left Earth in order. Inthe meantime, the cat was sleeping unawares, and when hefinally opened his eyes he realised he had been left out, and thatno year would ever bear his name. In his fury, he never forgavethe mouse ever after.

ARIANNA PAPINI is a well-know writer, illustrator and painter, who was theeditorial director of Fatatrac for a long time. She has published over 40 titleswith various publishers and regularly exhibits her work in individual andcollective exhibitions. She has been awarded the Premio Andersen perl’Infanzia.




Album Hardcover, 2016, pp. 54 € 21,00Rights sold to: Brazil

Jane AustenJack & AliceIllustrated by Andrea Joseph

There is no reader in the world who will not come across thepages of one of the most popular authors in the four cornersof the planet sooner or later: Jane Austen. Yet almost no oneknows this novel in miniature, which Austen wrote whilst still ateenager, winking one eye to readers of her age for this veryreason. What makes these pages even rarer, is the illustrated-album formula, practically never used so far to accompany astory by the great Jane. This is why sly young Alice and her ruralband are now making their entrance in the Donzelli series,having emerged over two centuries ago from the witty,mischievous pen of a fifteen year-old with great expectations,and portrayed here by the nib and ink of an illustrator from thepresent day, a compatriot of Austen’s. Welcome to the mosthilarious story by Jane Austen – who parades her typicalcharacters in a distorting mirrors gallery, like an amusementpark, where every tic and little mania is amplified for the joy andamusement of her conniving readers.

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) is one of the most beloved English writersof all time. Many of her more popular novels (such as Pride andPrejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma) have been brought to the bigscreen in recent years, triggering new translations of her work andcausing an increase in her readership worldwide.

ANDREA JOSEPH lives in the English countryside, which is the settingof many of Austen’s stories. Selected among a number of illustratorsexhibiting at the Bologna Trade Fair in 2009, her illustrations of thisnarrative mark Joseph’s international debut.

Donzellieditore

-ForeignRights

Highlights

1817-2017Let’s celebrate Jane’s 200th Anniversary

Fiabe e Storie, Hardcover, 2015, pp. 170 € 25,00 All rights available


la storia del mantello magico

Donzelli

l. frank baum

illustrazioni di aurélia fronty

ai confini del mondo di oz

B



Fiabe e Storie, Hardcover, 2015 pp. 526 € 34,00 All rights available


Fiabe e Storie, Hardcover, 2014, pp. 904 € 37,00. Rights sold to: Brazil

Donzelli’sIllustrated Classics

A bite of our backlisttitles...

Donzelli editoreVia Mentana 2b

00185 Rome - Italywww.donzelli.it

Come and visit ourstand: Hall 26, B21

Foreign Rights: Elena Munafò

[email protected]

download rights list (pdf)

Documents