I wrote Smugglers, Rebels, Pirates. Itineraries in the publishing history of Doctor Zhivago in 2015 on the occasion of the conference “Poetry and Politics in the Twentieth Century: Boris Pasternak, His Family, and His Novel Doctor Zhivago” organized by Lazar Fleishman at Stanford University in 2015 (see my previous post here). After the translations in Russian (2017) and Chinese (2018), an Italian translation has now been published by Pontremoli Editore (Milan) with the title Itinerari nella storia editoriale del “Dottor Zivago”, tra contrabbandieri ribelli e pirati. The Italian edition contains some new material with respect to the original English edition: an additional Preface to the Italian edition and an Afterword containing a bibliographical update.

The book was presented in Milan at the Libreria Pontremoli on December 20. Giacomo Coronelli prepared the Italian translation and the edition. He also acted as moderator for the conversation that took place, in the beautiful setting of the Libreria Pontremoli, at the presentation on December 20, between me and Carlo Feltrinelli on the vicissitudes of the publication of Doctor Zhivago.

The books that can be seen in the picture are (from left to right): Senior Service by Carlo Feltrinelli; and the Chinese, Russian, Italian and English versions of Smugglers, Rebels, Pirates. In addition, the Libreria Pontremoli organized for the occasion an exhibit of first editions of Doctor Zhivago, which included the copies of the first Italian edition, the major editions in Russian published in the West, and some South American editions.

I take the opportunity to thank the team at Pontremoli Editore for their wonderful collaboration and especially Giacomo Coronelli for his careful work on the edition, and the owners Lucia di Maio and Giovanni Milani for having sponsored the initiative contributing to “the world as it should be” (“il mondo come dovrebbe essere”), as my friend Niccolò Guicciardini, who attended the presentation, aptly described their bookstore and editorial activities. I owe a special thank to Carlo Feltrinelli for having accepted to participate in the presentation of the book and for having lent the copies of the Western editions of the Russian text of Doctor Zhivago for the exhibit. For more pictures of the event see the blog by the Libreria Pontremoli here.