Postcard from Tuscany

If you’re driving this way (though I’d recommend a train for the full experience – missed and late connections are great to catch up on reading), Florence is inevitable. Vanni will show you around dungeons and the underground scenes, and include some contemporary takes on Dante and Ariosto. Alessandro may also be in the area, depending on Karma. After that, though, head a smidge north on the bus, to Fiesole, for Dacia and her incredible life of stories; you can then keep going northwest along the hills, and grab a fantastical reading from Francesca if you can, her tarots are like no one else’s. Roll into the piana for some old school puppets in Collodi (Carlo chose the name for a reason). When you get to the coast, drop south by Alberto and his hybridised language workers for a laugh and some hard truths – he’s been all over the UK too. If you can, keep following the coast south towards Orbetello and Teresa’s spiky writing. An acquired taste, perhaps, but boy does she know how to land a punch.

If I can meet you for a coffee, I’ll be back north, just outside of Florence. We have poets too, and a river…

(The Italian Riveter, p. 89)

The Riveter is a free magazine devoted to riveting European literature in English. The idea is to make international writing popular and accessible to readers everywhere and to celebrate excellent translation and great books from the rest of Europe.

The Riveter was launched in 2017 by the European Literature Network. Professionally edited and published by a small dedicated team, it attracts support from a wide range of publishers, authors, translators, critics, academics – and readers. It has achieved acclaim with its special issues on Polish, Russian, Nordic, Baltic, Swiss, Queer, German, Romanian and Dutch literature in English.

The magazine is distributed free to bookshops, libraries, colleges and other organisations, and at events across the UK and Europe. It is also available to order from newsstand.co.uk (Romanian and Dutch) and all editions are free to download in their digital form from the European Literature Network website.

You can find books featured in The Riveters on ELNet’s page on bookshop.org.