Some of Italy’s best-known writers, including Luigi Pirandello, Natalia Ginzburg, Alberto Moravia, and Antonio Tabucchi, join Italy’s rising literary stars to take the reader on a panoramic tour of both city and countryside, across the social spectrum, surveying the country’s rich cultural history. Explore Italy’s popular tourist destinations and out-of-the-way spots under the fresh and even startling light cast by these eighteen diverse and exciting stories, most of which are available here in English for the first time. Italy is consistently one of the top five travel destinations in the world for American travelers. For those who wish to reach beyond the stereotypes and discover an Italy that’s off the beaten path, as well as new insights along familiar, well-traveled roads, these stories—arranged geographically for the traveler, armchair or otherwise—is an excellent place to start. Lawrence Venuti is a distinguished translator of Italian literature, as well as an internationally known translation theorist and historian. He has lived in Florence and Rome and has lectured extensively throughout Italy. He has received awards from PEN America Center, the NEA and the NEH. He reviews Italian fiction for The New York Times and is professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia.