Cephalonia

Translated from the Italian by Evgenia Matt.

Cephalonia 1943-2001 is a narrative poem in the form of a dialogue or rather, a two-voiced monologue: a fragmented epic, contextualizing the massacre of Italian soldiers perpetrated by German troops in the days following the armistice, signed between Italy and the Allied Forces on September 8, 1943. The voices belong to Ettore B, an Italian soldier fallen in combat, but possibly executed, and Hans D, a German businessman born with a silver spoon in his mouth, that is a man who always lands on his feet, before, during and above all after the war.

Luigi Ballerini was born in 1940, and lives in New York and Milan. The author of numerous essays on Italian Futurism, avant-garde literature and poetry, medieval poetry, historical gastronomy, and contemporary sculpture, he has edited several bilingual anthologies of Italian and American poetry, and translated a variety of American authors including Herman Melville, William Carlos Williams, and Gertrude Stein. 

His poetry has appeared under the following titles: eccetera. E (1972), Che figurato muore (1988), Che oror l’orient (1991), Il terzo gode (1994, The Cadence of a Neighboring Tribe, English edition, 1997) Stracci shakespeariani (1996), Uscita senza strada (2000), Uno monta la luna (2001), Cefalonia (2005, 2013), Se il tempo è matto (Mondadori, 2010), Una dozzina + 3 (2012). A volume of his collected poems will be published by Mondadori in April 2016.