The American novel is great and arrives on newsstands with the «Corriere»- Corriere.it

There isn’t just one America: there’s Kent Haruf’s vibrant plain and Russell Banks’ tough mountain, Thomas Pynchon’s post-hippie California and Rick Moody’s bourgeois New York. Variety isn’t just about panoramas, it’s about stylesthe generations, the points of view that literature has captured, from America and from the West.

A kaleidoscope in which almost every destiny is told, explained the Premio Strega Sandro Veronesi in a recent interview: «In the destinies of the last 70-80 years it has not been possible not to cross America, which concerns us all, whatever life what we chose to do.” Precisely Veronesi edited the new «Americana» series of the «Corriere della Sera»: 27 volumes on newsstands from today (each volume And 8.90 plus the cost of the newspaper), in a series that includes many of the most important items in the United States today. The graphic design is by XxY Studio, and the images come from The Anonymous Project archive curated by Lee Shulman.

The series of novels was born recalling two famous anthologies that had already brought together the great voices of twentieth-century America, but which inevitably stopped in that century: American by Elio Vittorini from 1941 and My America by Franco Cordelli from 1991, evoked by Veronesi in the presentation. The new series, on the other hand, offers the “giants” who have also entered the new millennium (with rare exceptions). And each book (except The dying animal by Philip Roth) is accompanied by a preface signed by well-known Italian writers. A few examples: Veronesi himself, in the preface to the first volume on newsstands today, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (translation by Pier Francesco Paolini), says that the book “despite all its marvelous puzzle machinations” is a “masterpiece of classical narrative”.

The second volume, on newsstands July 12, is
Libra
by Don DeLillo (translation by Massimo Bocchiola): the preface of the Premio Strega Emanuele Trevi compares the novel with other titles on the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, but identifies its original intuition, which “concerns the profound nature of every kind of intrigue”. For Sister, my only love by Joyce Carol Oates (translation by Giuseppe Costigliola), on newsstands on July 19, it is Teresa Ciabatti who reflects on the novel, inspired by a news story (the murder of a beauty queen), but which narrates – she explains – much more , «the ambition of the American middle class to excel». Alessandro Piperno, in the preface a The way homeavailable on July 26 (translation by Fabio Cremonesi), captures the greatness of Kent Haruf, one of the “great introverts who work by subtraction”, and confesses: “When I read it, Clint Eastwood immediately comes to mind”.

Impossible to mention all the novels and prefaces, listed on this page with the dates of their releases. And speaking of newsstands: «I like the idea that these books – explained Veronesi – end up in the hands of those who rely on newsstands, where “genre” books are often bought. They are enjoyable books, of course. But the difference compared to the “genre” book, to detective stories for example, is that the thriller has rules and trouble if you break them. These are not genre books, and it’s nice to indulge too».

The covers, the graphic project

All the volumes of «Americana», the new series of the «Corriere» edited by Sandro Veronesi, have on the cover the American photographs of The Anonymous Project by the filmmaker Lee Shulman, an archive of private images from all over the world. XxY Studio graphic project.