*Getting non-Anglophone SF published in English isn't easy.
The Samovar of the Strange Horizons, they're into global
NTERVIEW: FRANCESCO VERSO
BY: FRANCESCO VERSO
ISSUE: 4 DECEMBER 2017
Francesco Verso is an Italian author and publisher. The story “A Day to Remember/ Un giorno da ricordare”, by Clelia Farris, published in this issue of Samovar and translated by Rachel Cordasco, was first published in Italian by Francesco through his project Future Fiction. Recently he has published a dual Italian-Chinese language anthology of Chinese SF, Nebula. A review of his novel of his novel Nexhuman was published in Strange Horizons. We’re delighted that Francesco has taken time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions! You can also read his report of the recent international SF convention in Chengdu here.
Your novel Nexhuman has been translated into English by Sally McCorry, and was recently acquired by Apex Publishing for US release. Can you tell us what inspired the book?
The main idea of book was inspired by something I saw some years ago: I in a flea market in Rome with my wife when we noticed—inside a big garbage bin—an 8 year old boy who had just found a doll as tall as him; he was cleaning it and caressing it as if it was his girlfriend. Then his mother came along telling him to move along and not to waste any time with the doll, as he should have been searching for more valuable things. This image, touching and terrible at the same time, started Peter Payne’s story and his seemingly impossible love. It is no secret that hyper-consumerism and overproduction is leaving on the ground of every city the price we have to pay for our neglect and lack of respect for the environment. In Nexhuman I've pushed this alarming situation to the extreme consequences of a process that is already visible almost everywhere.
How was the experience of being translated? Did you work with Sally McCorry as she was doing the translation?
It was a very hard bet: back in 2012, when Livido (Nexhuman’s original Italian title) won all the major Italian SF awards, I didn’t know how to submit the story to a publisher outside of Italy. I knew that nobody was waiting for an Italian SF book, as there hasn’t been one published in maybe more than 20 years and the 3% problem issue was a barely impossible obstacle to overcome. But I believed so much in the novel that I was determined to find an English speaking translator to help me translate Nexhuman. Meeting Sally McCorry changed everything: not only did she like SF, but she liked also the book and she had some spare time to dedicate to translating non-commercial fiction. So I invested my personal money, paying her her in 5-6 instalments as the work progressed, and we worked—chapter by chapter—to revise the text in order to come up with a good first draft. It took us around 1 year to complete the task, as we were both working on many other things, but finally I had my first English translation ready and I started to look for a place to submit it. The book was first published in Australia by Xoum in 2015 and the editor, David Henley, had another round of editing to finally polish and adapt the text for English readers. And then last summer, when Rachel Cordasco helped me submit the book to Jason Sizemore, something incredible happened. In just 4-5 weeks time after the submission, I received a publishing contract by Apex Books. This is the first Italian SF book to be published in the USA in a very long time.
This is just to say how incredibly difficult and unfavourable it is to be an SF writer born in a non-English speaking country. It takes so much more time and effort, just to compete with a book written in English.
Can you tell us about the current Italian SF/F publishing scene? Are there any particular trends that you're seeing?
Digital publishing and the rise of small presses have given new energy to Italian SF in recent years. Time travel (namely the long-standing Italian affection for the past, whether it’s the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, which is still generating many uchronias) and post-apocalyptic dystopias are two major trends in Italian SF books. Up to some years ago Italy might have been considered as producing more “soft SF” than “hard SF”. Today, thanks to the access to information, the spread of the internet and a better knowledge of English, writers such as Giovanni De Matteo, Clelia Farris, Francesco Grasso, Alessandro Vietti and Nicoletta Vallorani—just to mention a few—are absolutely comparable in terms of themes and quality to any other country producing SF at a professional level. Personally I am very interested in the posthuman condition and the transition to a new society where A.I., 3D printing, and bio- and nanotech will have a definitive role in shaping the reality of the things to come....
