Claudio Morandini
Snow, dog, foot
Translated from the Italian by J Ockenden
128pp, £12
Peirene Press
Closed Universe series
ISBN 978-1-908670-56-4
eISBN 978-1-908670-57-1
Shortlisted for the John Florio Prize
Adelmo Farandola doesn’t like people. In summer he roams the valleys, his only company a talkative, cantankerous old dog and a young mountain ranger who, Adelmo Farandola suspects, is spying on him.
When winter comes, man and dog are snowed in. With stocks of wine and bread depleted, they pass the time squabbling over scraps, debating who will eat the other first.
Spring brings a more sinister discovery that threatens to break Adelmo Farandola’s already faltering grip on reality: a man’s foot poking out of the receding snow.
J Ockenden is a translator, journalist, broadcaster, poet and winner of the 2019 Peirene Stevns Translation Prize. After entering the prize with a translation of the first chapter, J was awarded a writer’s retreat in the Pyrenees, where the work was completed. This is J’s first full-length literary translation.
‘A remarkable depiction of an old man’s descent from self-reliance into madness.’ Amanda Craig
Transators Aloud: J Ockenden reads from Claudio Morandini’s Snow Dog Foot.
