Memories of My Childhood + Three Stories (in Estonian)
Review of the Estonian language translation "Jutustused" (Stories) published 2017 by Loomingu Raamatukogu (The Creation Library) translated from the Italian original "Racconti" (Stories) (1961)

This Estonian language edition conveniently combines Lampedusa's major shorter works, the memoir Places of My Infancy: A Memory and the 3 short stories which are usually collected with La Sirena aka Lighea being the title work, such as in The Professor and the Siren (2014) from NYRB Classics. The first Italian editions such as Racconti (Stories) (1961) lack the memoir, but all of the later ones such as I racconti: Nuova edizione rivista e accresciuta (Stories: New Revised and Enhanced Edition) (2015) include it. It is this latter 2015 edition that is the source text of the Estonian translation as translator Heete Sahkai explains in her Afterword.

I wanted to investigate Lampedusa after seeing Steven Price's historical-non-fiction novel Lampedusa (2019) nominated for Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize. Not having previously read Lampedusa at all, I started keeping an eye out for his works and the Estonian LR edition was conveniently on sale for about 3 Euros from an online store, so I started with that.

What I especially loved about this edition is its old-time translator's convention of leaving foreign language words in the original text untranslated, but explained in a footnote. Where Lampedusa inserts Latin, French, English, Piedmontese, Sicilian language or dialect into his Italian text, Sahkai leaves it intact. This sort of faithful translation captures the flavour of an original that a thorough translation does not. Sahkai is also very thorough also in her explanations of historical personages, references and events. There are 66 footnotes in total in this Estonian translation. By contrast, Stephen Twilley's The Professor and the Siren has no footnotes and is a thorough translation. So, as an example, from Twilley's "cause of so great a calamity" on pg. 1 of The Professor and the Siren you never learn that Lampedusa wrote it as "causa mali tanti" and that the quote comes from Virgil's The Aeneid VI, 93.

There was much to admire about this whole packaging and translation including the beauty of the language that gave the perfect illusion that Lampedusa's often humourous, exhilarating, and sometimes erotic and naturalistic Italian might have been written in Estonian as well.

Trivia and Links
The Loomingu Raamatukogu (The Creation Library) is a modestly priced one-time Estonian literary weekly paperback (from 1957 to 1994) which now publishes 40 issues a year as of 1995. It is a great source for discovery as its relatively cheap prices (currently 3 to 5€ per issue) allow for access to a multitude of international writers in Estonian translation and of shorter works by Estonian authors themselves. These include poetry, theatre, essays, short stories, novellas and novels (the lengthier works are usually parcelled out over several issues).

For a complete listing of all works issued to date by Loomingu Raamatukogu see Estonian Wikipedia at: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loomingu_Raamatukogus_ilmunud_teoste_loend_aastak%... ( )