Written in his Bastille cell in the years between 120 Days of Sodom and Justine, this is the first English translation of Marquis de Sade’s collection of short works, Stories, Tales, and Fables.

Essential reading for all Sade devotees, Stories, Tales, and Fables is an introduction for those who are not yet familiar with the work of this controversial French literary innovator. The short works in this collection range from the dramatic novella, Dorci, to comic tales such as The Duped Judge. Whether he is writing bawdy, exuberant comedies, supernatural tales, or human tragedies, Sade is essentially a moralist, and his exploration of the darker side of human nature remains as relevant to our society as it was to his own.

Psychologically perceptive and defiantly unconventional, Stories, Tales, and Fables reveals the compelling force of Sade’s narrative powers. An accomplished and artful fiction writer, Sade, like all great writers, asks penetrating questions about society, life, and humanity. This collection also includes a selection of Sade’s non-fiction, ranging from his insightful survey of the novelist’s art, Some Thoughts on the Novel, to his Last Will and Testament, as well as several essays about Sade’s work by renowned authors including Apollinaire, Heine, Masson, Anatole France and Paul Ėluard."
-Review by Biblioklept (https://biblioklept.org/2025/03/26/marquis-de-sades-stories-tales-fables-book-acquired-mid-march-2025/)

The extract is from Some Thoughts on the Novel, Sade’s overview of fiction, and his advice to writers on how to write well.

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Author bio
The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. In his lifetime some of these were published under his own name while others, which de Sade denied having written, appeared anonymously. Sade is best known for his four erotic, libertine works, 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette, and Philosophy in the Boudoir, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, suffering, crime, and blasphemy. He was a proponent of absolute freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion, or law.

Translator bio
R J Dent is a poet, novelist, translator and short story writer. As a renowned translator of European literature, he has published modern English translations of The Songs of Maldoror (Le Comte de Lautréamont); Speculations (Alfred Jarry); Capital of Pain (Paul Ėluard); Her Three Daughters (Pierre Louӱs); The Surrealist Manifesto and Soluble Fish (André Breton); The Dead Man (Georges Bataille); Stories, Tales, and Fables (Marquis de Sade); Poems & Fragments (Alcaeus); The Flowers of Evil (Charles Baudelaire); The Seed and The Bridges (Tarjei Vesaas) and major works by Louis Aragon, Maurice Rollinat and Antonin Artaud.

As a poet and novelist, R J Dent is the author of a poetry collection, Moonstone Silhouettes; two novels, Revelation and Myth; a short story collection, Gothiques and Fantastiques; and two non-fiction books: Emily Dickinson’s Sexual Personae and Screaming at the Window, a true crime biography of Blanche Monnier: the Prisoner of Poitiers.

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In Scauri, an end of the line seaside town forty miles or so from Rome, Vittoria dies unexpectedly in her bath. Whilst the townsfolk meet the event with sad but respectful southern Italian silence, Lea, the town lawyer, wants to investigate. Who was Vittoria, what were her secrets, why had she mysteriously arrived in Scauri thirty years earlier? And was her relationship with Lea all that it seemed?

In this unforgettable portrait of a small town and the women who live there, reverberations from the past catch up with present. Through the silences, Vittoria’s story is revealed and everything - passions, emotions, and relationships - changes forever.

Novelist, editor, critic, cultural commentator and mathematician Chiara Valerio is a sensation in Italy and The Little I Knew is a huge bestseller. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Premio Strega.

“Enigmatic and beguiling, precise and unsettling, this seductive novel opens with a mysterious death, asking compelling questions about desire, knowability and the still limited possibilities of freedom for women. Chiara Valerio is a major talent.” OLIVIA LAING

“With wit, subtlety and charm, Valerio captures the complex currents of secrecy and desire that is just under the surface of small-town and family life. A beguiling, atmospheric story of female fascinations.” SARAH WATERS

“The writing is nimble and on point. The structure is tight. With a death at the beginning, it reminds me of Ginzburg or Sciascia.” JHUMPA LAHIRI
“The narrative is an enchantment of phantasmagorical goings-on and the small realities of provincial life.” DACIA MARAINI

“In the story Chiara Valerio tells, there is something of the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, something of that elegance and of those gardens, of gentle slowness and ancient bonds.” VALERIA PARRELLA, GRAZIA

“Chiara Valerio plays with the noir genre and transforms it; rather she reveals what is at its heart. Yes of course we need to find out how Vittoria died. But maybe it’s more crucial to find out how Vittoria lived.” PAOLO DI PAOLO, LA REPUBBLICA

Author bio
CHIARA VALERIO was born in Scauri in 1978 and lives in Rome. She has published essays, novels, short stories, including: La gioia piccola d’esser quasi salvi (2009), Spiaggia libera tutti (2010), Il cuore non si vede (2019), La matematica è politica (2020), Nessuna scuola mi consola (2021), Così per sempre (2022), La tecnologia è religione (2023)

Translator bio
AILSA WOOD is a translator from Italian and French. Her work on Stefano Benni’s monologues from Le Beatrici was the winner of the prestigious John Dryden Translation Prize in 2022. Besides her work as a literary translator, she works across various related sectors including wine and tourism. Ailsa has an M.A. in Literary Translation (with Distinction) from the University of East Anglia and lives in Italy.

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.foundryeditions.co.uk/thelittleiknew

In this firsthand account of the Holocaust, survivor Tobias Schiff displays the depths of human suffering, the capacity for hope and renewal, and the impact of starvation on the human mind. Schiff was a teenager when Nazis deported his family to Auschwitz from Antwerp, Belgium, and he spent the next thirty-three agonizing months in numerous concentration camps. This deeply personal memoir-in-verse explores personal faith, identity, memory, and the lasting impact of trauma.
Schiff’s memoir transcends traditional narrative forms, offering a memorable reading experience that resonates with readers long after they turn the last page.

Press quotes:
“Schiff’s book, a Holocaust memoir in verse, excellently translated by Dani James, is a literary discovery. Because of the immediacy of the verse, close to the oral tradition, the reader is forced to think about the relationship between text and reality, between the writer as artist and the writer as witness.”
Arnon Grunberg
Author of Blue Mondays

“This book adds an important chapter to the oral history of a shameful episode in the twentieth century. Under the pressure of such immense emotions, the act of translation is a herculean task and especially so when the text is in poetic form. But Dani James does an admirable job rendering an English version of the original Flemish, whose heavy consonants and different rhythmic accents carry a kind of aural weight that is very difficult to capture in English.”
Dr. Keming Liu
Translator and Professor of Linguistics and Literature, Medgar Evers College, The City University of New York

Translator bio:

Dani James is a writer and translator. She was born in New York City and grew up in Belgium. She holds a BA in English from Baruch College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s University. Her English translation of Return to the Place I Never Left by Tobias Schiff was published January 2025 from Wayne State University Press. It’s available to order via all bookstores and major retailers.

● Website: https://danijames.co/
● YouTube: www.youtube.com/@ByDaniJames
● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dani______j/

Author bio:
Tobias (Toshek) Schiff (Poland, 1925–Belgium, 1999) was a Belgian Holocaust survivor. Postwar, he channeled his resilience into a career as a diamond broker in Antwerp before venturing into photography with a store in Brussels. In 1989, his journey through the Nazi camps was featured in the documentary Monsieur S. et Madame V. Committed to educating future generations and memorializing those who were lost, Schiff dedicated his later years to speaking in schools and published Return to the Place I Never Left in Flemish in 1997.

Links to buy:
https://danijames.co/return-to-the-place-i-never-left/

For rights info, contact:
https://danijames.co/contact

The translator has permission to translate this sample and share a recording of it on Translators Aloud.