Outside Vallorgàna, a tiny, isolated village high in the foothills of the Dolomites, the ‘Duke’ lives in the villa of his aristocratic ancestors. The last in the centuries-old line of the Cimamontes, he spends his days on his land, absorbed in the family archive, and tolerated (if gently ridiculed) by the villagers who are his neighbours. When he finds out that the village’s self-proclaimed autocrat is taking timber from his land, he has a decision to make: will he stay in his glorious, cerebral isolation, or will he honour his ancestral blood and take action against this affront?

Matteo Melchiorre’s portrait of the idiosyncratic character of the Duke and the world of Vallorgàna is a sweeping feat of literary imagination. With the pace, panorama, and plot twists of a great nineteenth-century classic, the breathless story of the Duke’s ensuing feud unfolds, asking some big twenty-first-century questions about our relationships with privilege, the past, the natural world, and each other.

“This strange language takes hold of you - like a forest growing around you - and you don’t even notice.” PAOLO COGNETTI

“It’s a story set in the present, yes—but a present heavy with the weight of centuries. It has been a long time since I’ve read such a powerful novel, a novel that seeks to re-enchant the world.” TIZIANO SCARPA

“With The Duke, Matteo Melchiorre has crafted a taut, epic tale about the madness of power, the laws of nature and individual freedom.” IL LIBRAIO

“This remarkable book makes us believe that some of the reasons why we still plough our way through novels might still be alive: the thirst for adventure, the chill of the mountains, a sense of greatness slightly beyond our reach.” La Lettura, CORRIERE DELLA SERA

Translator bio
Antonella Lettieri is a translator working between English and Italian. Her translations include Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter (published by Foundry Editions in 2024), Roberta Recchia’s All That is Left of Life (published by Dialogue Books in 2025), and Matteo Melchiorre’s The Duke (published by Foundry Editions in 2025).
Antonella was a Mentee for the National Centre for Writing Emerging Translator for Italian in 2023 and won first prize in the John Dryden Translation Competition in the same year. Your Little Matter was granted the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature in 2024 and is currently shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize.

Author bio
Matteo Melchiorre was born in 1981. He began his professional career in academia as a researcher at the University of Udine and then the University Ca' Foscari, and the Iuav of Venice. He has been the director of the Museum Library and the Historical Archive of Castelfranco Veneto since 2018. He specialises in the economic and social history of the Middle Ages and the early modern period, as well as the history of mountains and forests. His first novel, Il Duca, was published by Einaudi in 2022.

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.foundryeditions.co.uk/bookshop/p/theduke

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THERE WAS A TIME FOR SUCH A WORD, Gianni Solla's debut novel in English, has been translated into thirteen languages. Set in a remote part of southern Italy during World War II, it tells the story of Davide, an illiterate pig keeper. His three-sided friendship with Nicolas, a Jewish boy whose family has been banished from Naples, and Teresa, the daughter of a village ropemaker, inspires him to seek liberation through language and learning. Their relationship takes them through the perilous terrain of adolescence in which harsh choices lead to betrayal and remorse. David is forced to escape from a cruel family life to the rubble-strewn streets of Naples where he finds salvation in back-alley theaters through the transformative power of storytelling. As the years pass, he resolves to search for his two lost friends, bringing this heartrending story to its conclusion.

“With There Was a Time for Such a Word, Gianni Solla has written a very subtle, quiet story about friendships forged in times of inhumanity.” — Nürnberger Nachrichten “Gianni Solla has written a love story of overwhelming power that unfolds in three parts and reads as thrillingly as a crime novel.” — Badische Neueste Nachrichten

Translator bio
RICHARD DIXON translated the last works of Umberto Eco, including his novels The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero. Other translations include works by Giacomo Leopardi, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Paolo Volponi, Roberto Calasso, Antonio Moresco and Stefano Massini. He translated Pope Francis’s Hope: The Autobiography in January 2025.
His reading from Paolo Volponi’s THE WORLD MACHINE for Translators Aloud can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7LBdrLMDoI

Author bio
GIANNI SOLLA was born and lives in Naples. He has published short stories in international anthologies and literary magazines, and collaborated with Il Napoli from 2006 to 2010. His novel Airbag (2008) was followed by Il fiuto dello squalo (2012) and Tempesta madre (2021).