A tender, poetic coming-of-age tale drawn from author Carmine Abate’s childhood in the village of Carfizzi, The Round Dance transforms southern Italy into a magical realist wonderland that rivals Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo. A multicultural masterpiece inspired by ancient Albanian oral traditions, publisher Mondadori named it among the one hundred greatest Italian novels of the twentieth century.

 

CARMINE ABATE is a prolific Italian author whose many books include the novels Between Two Seas and The Homecoming Party and the short story collection The Wedding Banquet and Other Flavors. His debut novel, The Round Dance (Il ballo tondo), won the ARGE ALP Readers’ International Prize.
 
MICHELANGELO LA LUNA is a professor of Italian language and literature at the University of Rhode Island. He is the author of several books and articles on Italian and Italian-Albanian writers and poets, such as Carmine Abate, Luigi Capuana, Dante Alighieri, Girolamo De Rada, Dacia Maraini, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.


 

Foreword, "Memory and Identity Performance in the Imagined 'Hora' of Albanians of Italy or Arbëreshë," Francesco Altimari
Translator's Note, Michelangelo La Luna
Lojmë lojmë, vasha, vallen
Prologue
Një
Dy
Tre
Katër
Pesë
Gjashtë
Shtatë
Tetë
Nendë
Djetë
Eleven
Vu spërvjeret Skandërbeku
Viatrice delle fate
The Green-Eyed Partridge
The Smallest White Castle in the World
The Little Ladies and the Bored Little Soldier 
The Round Dance
Skanderbeg's Bust
The Christmas Hearth
The Fake Mericano
Zëmërgùri
Two Fingers of Honor on the Forehead
Ish një jëmë shumë e mirë
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Shkoi një ditë mjegullore
The Final Vallja
Author's Note
Notes on Contributors