Made in Italy: Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller is one of the first books I saw in Italy. At first, I didn’t even think the book was a translation. The cover was almost identical to my copy back in the States, and the title hadn’t changed at all—which makes sense as it is a name. A quick flip through the first couple of pages proved me very wrong. This was the first time I’d seen a translated book that wasn’t a classic, and I was absolutely ecstatic. I immediately wanted to know everything about it—who published it, who translated it, how the acquisition happened. There’s nothing like seeing a story you know and love being shared and well-appreciated across cultures. And well-appreciated it truly is.

I’ve quickly learned that Madeline Miller is very popular here in Italy. La canzone di Achille, when name-dropped around Italian university students, had gotten me a chorus of excited shouts. Miller’s works are a consistent staple amongst Italian bookstores, across all the towns I’ve visited. I’ve seen them displayed front and center since January, from train stations to indie sellers, from Venice to Lecce. Mythology retellings in general seem to be very popular at the moment, too. A month back, at a Le Feltrinelli in Florence, I kicked up a small conversation with a local who read nearly every book shelved on the store’s Antichi Storici display.

Circe was translated by Marinella Magrì and was first published in Italy in 2019 by Sonzogno. Magrì has also translated Miller’s short story, Galatea, and Il circo della notte (The Night Circus) by Erik Morgenstern. In 2021, Marsilio Editori, an imprint of the publishing house Feltrinelli, published their own edition, albeit still with Magrì's translation.

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