It’s 2007 and we are in Bilbao, worn out by the final blows of Basque terrorism. Gorane and Jokin are twenty-five year old twins and children of ETA militants. Raised without rules, they take opposing and complementary directions: compliant and passive to everything, Jokin, a heroin-addict drummer, seems to follow in his parents’ footsteps, while Gorane, ambiguous and introverted, pulls away seeking refuge in an abstract world. When Jokin runs away and their parents become involved in a tragic event, Gorane finds herself prey to strange hallucinations of her parents. Meanwhile in Paris, Jokin struggles with his attraction to the mysterious Germana, yet, despite the distance, the twins’ lives seem destined to never separate and it will be a French writer’s novel that reconnects them.
The Melee is a polyphonic work; a world that connects reality to our most recondite dreams, a world where the only driving force seems to be blind violence. Can freedom reveal itself to be an instrument of torture, and can empathy that resists absolutism prevail in the face of trauma? Valentina Maini responds in the pages of this provocative debut and its web of stories connecting drug dealers, smugglers, psychiatrists, writers, cleaners and fortune tellers - and she does it with the conviction of Roberto Bolaño and Mathias Énard: looking chaos directly in the eye.
THE MELEE BY VALENTINA MAINI (PUBLISHED IN ITALIAN BY BOLLATI BORINGHIERI, 2020)
FIRST PLACE IN THE L'INDISCRETO QUALITY RANKINGS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SEVERINO CESARI DEBUT AWARD 2020
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FONDAZIONE MONDADORI DEBUT AWARD 2020
CHOSEN BY KOBO IN THEIR 50 BOOKS TO DEFY AND SURVIVE THE YEAR 2020
“What is great European literature today? The Melee by Valentina Maini has the range and complexity to fit the bill and the ambition to be part of it.”
VERONICA RAIMO (The Girl at the Door)
“There are writers who, more than make their debut, burst onto the scene. By writing novels that play havoc with all the rules. Valentina Maini is one of them.”
ANDREA BAJANI (If You Kept a Record of Sins; Every Promise)
“Redolent of Clarice Lispector and Roberto Bolano, a haunted, captivating, poetic novel that tells the story of two children of ETA and their quest for life and the future under the tight rein of a true artist and her unique, visionary freedom of language.”
MARTA BARONE (Città sommersa)
“In The Melee, Valentina Maini unfurls a notable variety of textual typologies – reports, statements, recordings, a novel within the novel – showing that it is still possible to tell stories in an impressive, original manner.”
WU MING 2 (Q; Manituana; 54)
Valentina Maini was born in Bologna in 1987. She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature between Bologna and Paris and has published short stories in retabloid, TerraNullius, Atti Impuri, Horizonte, and other magazines. Some of her articles have appeared in Poetiche, La Deleuziana, and Classiques Garnier. With her collection of poetry, Casa Rotta (2016), she won the Anna Osti literary prize. She translates from French and from English into Italian.
Sean McDonagh is an emerging literary translator who translates from Italian. He is based in London where he works in publishing, and has been pursuing literary translation projects since participating in the Warwick Translates Summer School 2019. He has had a translation published on Asymptote, and as a poet has also had work published on Allegro, Rockland and Foxtrot Uniform. Sean has a BA in English, has lived and studied in Turin, and has completed an advanced course at the Italian Cultural Institute.
@seanpjamcdonagh (Twitter)
seanmcdonaghtranslator.com
For rights info, contact: Flavia Abbinante - flavia.abbinante@bollatiboringhieri.it
Rights Sold: Portuguese
The translator has obtained permission from the original rights holder to translate this sample and share a recording of it on Translators Aloud.
TO READ A LONGER EXTRACT, please visit: seanmcdonaghtranslator.com/projects-seeking-a-publisher
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![When Red House Alley first appeared (as Der heilige Skarabäus [The sacred scarab],1909), it sent shockwaves through Viennese society. For the first time, the women and girls caught up in and destroyed by the sex trade were portrayed as real human beings rather than predators or mindless victims. The book became a bestseller and was considered one of the most important German novels of the early 20th century. Banned as decadent by the Nazis, it was forgotten for over 75 years. Red House Alley is the first complete and uncensored English translation of this landmark work. It reveals how the brothel system operated, how women were procured and ruined, and how society fostered a trade that public morals condemned. Else Jerusalem refused to accept degradation as the only fate for the women and girls of Red House. With the protagonist Milada, she presents a thoughtful, compassionate woman who finds an escape for herself and others like her. This is the first complete English translation of Der heilige Skarabäus (1909) Translated and with an afterword by Stephanie G. Ortega Introduction by Sophie Haydock “A cultural phenomenon.... The double standard Jerusalem exposed in her novel persists: it is still more acceptable to hire a sex worker than it is to be one.” Daniel Elkind, Lapham' Quarterly “Milada’s budding class consciousness stands out…. The rungs of the social ladder, ever slippery, are conveyed by the recurring images of closed doors and untraversable bridges: ‘pick your way across a narrow bridge … you lose your balance and come tumbling down.’ Thankfully recovered, Red House Alley is an impressive novel that remains optimistic despite its violence.” Colm McKenna, Times Literary Supplement Author biography Author bio Else Jerusalem was born into a Jewish Hungarian family in Vienna in 1876. She studied at the University of Vienna, but as a woman she was not an official student. Her first book, Venus am Kreuz [Venus crucified], a collection of novellas, was published in 1899. She married in 1901, had two children, and remained active in intellectual, literary, and social affairs. In 1909, she published her novel Der heilige Skarabäus, based on her independent research on prostitution in Vienna. It became a bestseller throughout the German-speaking world. In 1910 she divorced her first husband, married the embryologist Viktor Widakowich, and emigrated with him to Argentina. There, she had a daughter and wrote for German-language journals. She died in Buenos Aires in 1943. Translator bio Stephanie Gorrell Ortega grew up in the United States and graduated from high school in West Germany. She attended Mount Holyoke College and the University of Texas, Austin, where she earned a doctorate in German literature. She has taught at the Free University of Berlin; S.U.N.Y., Buffalo; the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; the University of Texas, Austin; and Texas State University. She has edited and translated with Poesie, Slavic Review, and Dimension: Contemporary German Arts and Letters. She lives in Austin, Texas. Red House Alley by Else Jerusalem Published by Boiler House Press (UK) Publication date: 30 November 2024 https://www.boilerhouse.press/product-page/red-house-alley Paperback edition Retail price: £22.99/$32.99 ISBN 978-1-915812-36-0 EPUB/Kindle edition ISBN: 978-1-915812-37-7 Retail price: £8.99/$9.99 Boiler House Press distribution by BookSource: Orders: orders@booksource.net Tel: +44 (0)141 642 9192 Also available through Gardners: Orders: sales@gardners.com Tel: +44 (0)1323 521555 And in the USA from Asterism Books: https://asterismbooks.com/product/red-house-alley-else-jerusalem Inquiries: info@asterimbooks.com](https://translatorsaloud.com/wp-content/plugins/youtube-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)