It is now official: Wu Ming 1 will translate the next Stephen King book into Italian. It is a collection of four novellas entitled Full Dark, No Stars.

Wu Ming 1 is one of the Constant Readers, a long-time Stephen King fan. For years, he’s been reviewing King’s books and writing about his work on newspapers and magazines.

A few days ago, WM1 wrote an open letter to the Italian King fandom, announcing the news and explaining a few things about his method. Here’s a translated excerpt:

I’m fully aware that, like a salmon, I’ll have to swim against a stream of mistrust (if not hostility), which is perfectly understandable. For many years, the Italian “voice” of King was that of Tullio Dobner. Dobner is a skilled translator and his undertakings are nothing short of epic, as he toiled and lost blood on King’s enormous tomes. He is also a generous person who often confronted the fan community in “no holds barred” discussions. It is normal that this new “experiment” raises eyebrows. In fact, I see talk of protests, petitions etc.

Here’s what I have to say: judge me by the result. (more…)

[WM1:] Years ago I read and appreciated Woody Haut’s book Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood.
I’m one of the two Italian translators of Elmore Leonard‘s novels, and I was puzzled about how many good Leonard books had been turned into really AWFUL films before Sonnenfeld, Soderbergh and Tarantino broke that negative tradition in the mid-to-late Nineties – with (respectively) Get Shorty, Out of Sight and Jackie Brown. How come 1970s and 1980s Hollywood couldn’t tune in on Leonard’s song?
I ordered Heartbreak and Vine along with other books that could help me understand, and was then able to put that incapability in its natural, historical context.
About four years later, am I delighted to see that Woody Haut (he’s the guy in the pic) appreciated Manituana and reviewed it on his blog.
He calls us “the hardest working collective in literature”. Not that there are many collectives of authors out there…