FOREIGN RIGHTS CATALOGUE SPRING 2021 OTAGO Literary Agency [email protected] FOUNDING MEMBER OF ADALI, THE ASSOCIATION OF ITalIAN LITERARY AGENTS WWW.ADalI.ORG Via Sant’Apollonia, 25 · 40126 Bologna (Italy) Tel. (+39) 051 0336342 [email protected] · www.otago.it Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/otago.agency Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/otagoliteraryagency LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/otago-agency Index • Otago Focus & Highlights 3 • Otago ReProposal 22 • Otago Backlist 31 • Arkadia Editore 34 • Pessime Idee Edizioni 51 [email protected] 2 CLAUDIO MORANDINI «SIMPLY ONE OF THE GREATEST ITALIAN WRITERS OF OUR TIME.» Fabrizio Ottaviani, il Giornale «ONE OF THE MOST SKILLED AND ASTONISHING NOVELISTS OF OUR LITERARY SCENE.» Umberto Rossi, Pulp Libri A high school teacher, Claudio Morandini lives in Aosta. He has written radio plays, theatre monologues and several novels. His book A gran giornate won the “Città di Trebisacce” Literary Prize in 2013. His short story Dita fredde is included in Santi – Lives of Modern Saints (Black Arrow Press, USA, 2007). In August 2018, Salani published his first children’s book,Le maschere di Pocacosa. Gli oscillanti has been published by Bompiani in 2019, with French rights sold in 2021. Neve, cane, piede, his most famous novel, has been a true literary phenomenon: a top 5 best-seller, it won the Procida-Elsa Morante-Isola di Arturo prize in 2016 and it has been sold to 8 Countries so far. A new expanded edition will be out in June 2021 by Bompiani as part of "Le Finestre", a series of novels by "great Italian authors". Recent titles: • 2021 (new edition): Neve, cane, piede, Italy (Bompiani), UK (Peirene Press), France (Anacharsis), Netherlands (Koppernik), Turkey (Timaş), Chile and Argentina (Edicola), Egypt (Al Arabi), Russia (Polyandria) • 2019: Gli oscillanti, Italy (Bompiani), France (Anacharsis) • 2018: Le maschere di Pocacosa, Italy (Salani) • 2017: Le pietre, Italy (Exòrma), France (Anacharsis), Turkey (Timaş) • 2010: Rapsodia su un solo tema, Italy (Manni), USA-Esperanto (Mondial) [email protected] 3 CLAUDIO MORANDINIHIGH LIGHTS FICTION NEVE, CANE, PIEDE Snow, Dog, Foot Winner of the 2017 ‘Modus Legendi’ Winner of the 2016 ‘Premio Procida- Isola di Arturo- Elsa Morante’ «A clever story «One of the 15 most beautiful books with two peculiar characters. This book is of our century.» one of those mysteries Original Publisher: Panorama that I would love to BOMPIANI witness all the time.» Michela Murgia Genre: Literary Novel Pages: 160 NEW EDITION PUBLISHED New Release: Jun 2021 BY BOMPIANI IN JUNE 2021 «Morandini takes Language: Italian us through a range NUMBER 5 ON ITALIAN BEST-SELLERS LIST of emotions, often Rights: World amusing us and SOLD TO 8 COUNTRIES unsettling us on the same page.» Sold to: The Herald · UK (Peirene Press) In the Alps, there is a lonesome valley where the old and scat- · France (Anacharsis) «An impeccable short · Netherlands (Koppernik) terbrained Adelmo Farandola wanders, crazy with solitude. novel, full of attention · Turkey (Timaş) Adelmo’s only companion is a nagging dog; together they to detail and musical · Chile (Edicola) form an unusual comic pairing, since Adelmo is able to un- rhythm.» · Argentina (Edicola) derstand its talking as well as those of other animals of the Il Mattino · Egypt (Al Arabi) · Russia (Polyandria) mountains. He also understands the voices of the wind, the sky, and even of the dead. «Le chien, la neige, un pied est un récit Struggling in the wild and hostile nature around him, we saisissant et cruel, follow him in the changing of seasons and in the repeti- déroutant, semblabe tiveness of his actions: but then one day, as spring arrives, à ces histoires Adelmo and his dog notice a foot in the melting snow. légendaires que l’on Snow, dog, foot is a strange little book that one can read aime à raconter à la cover to cover, enchanted by its characters and their sar- veillée.» Le Monde castic profundity. READ THE ÍENGLISH SAMPLE! [email protected] CLAUDIO MORANDINIHIGH LIGHTS FICTION LE PIETRE Stones KIOSK EDITION TO BE PUBLISHED ON JULY 2021 TOGETHER WITH LA REPUBBLICA SHORTLISTED FOR 2020 PRIX LITTÉRAIRE MARCO POLO VENISE AND PRIX HORS CHAMP «Unpredictable, fiendish and spiteful: these are Morandini’ stones.» Giorgio Vasta, la Repubblica Original Publisher: EXÒRMA / GEDI Genre: Literary Novel Pages: 192 In this novel, everything is in motion. New Release: Jul 2021 There is a little town in the Alps, Sostig- «Morandini embraces a mistery Language: Italian no, where all the locals keep moving to and he paints it with humour.» Rights: World and from the mountains; the river too is Corriere della Sera never still, changing its shape overnight. But most of all, the stones can’t stay idle. «Balancing immanence and Sold to: Bizzare events happen all the time, and metaphysics, Morandini creates · France (Anacharsis) the stones make their way into homes, a ghost story that rolls glori- · Turkey (Timaş) ously down the mountanside.» fields, everywhere they can. Until they Panorama appear in the living room of an old cou- ple’s “villa”, and the story unfolds with «A choral and polyphonic nov- echoes of Ionesco and Buster Keaton. el. Comic and dramatic at the A funny and choral novel where past same time, this story is sharp- and present merge and collide, just as ly ironic and deeply realistic.» if they were stones rolling down the Il Libraio mountainside. READ THE ÍFRENCH SAMPLE! [email protected] CLAUDIO MORANDINIBACK LIST FICTION GLI OSCILLANTI The Seesawers GLI OSCILLANTI «His most sarcastic and clever novel.» CLAUDIO MORANDINI «Writing about the way we L’Adige deal with everything that is different and unusual, Italian Alps, 1980. After what it looked like an endless The Seesawers proves once journey, a young ethnomusicologist ends up right again that Morandini is one INSEGUENDO LE VOCI DEI CANTI FINO NEL CUORE where she wanted to be: the little village of Crottarda. DEL BUIO of the most interesting When she was little, she used to go there on holiday authors of our time.» with her parents, and she never forgot the bewitch- La Lettura - Corriere della Sera ing sounds that she heard at night during their stay. Those sounds were the shouts that shepherds gave «An atmosphere of each other in between the crests; and now, moved instability, where nothing by her academic interest, she wants to study this is certain anymore. A story Original Publisher: ancient, mysterious habit. BOMPIANI that resonates deeply with What she finds out is that the oppressive shadow of our current times.» Genre: Literary Novel the mountain affects the village and the minds of its La Stampa Pages: 256 community, creating a hard hostility towards an- other village on the opposite, well-brighted slope, Release: Jun 2019 as if the conformation of the territory shaped its «Some novels are something Language: Italian people’s temper to the bone. else, and this is one of those.» Critica Letteraria Rights: World Helped by a local, uncanny girl and a speleologist only equipped with his own forehead lamp, the ethnomusicologist tries to decode the shepherds’ «Nobody can talk about this Sold to: sounds and the eccentric routines of the villagers, kind of mountain people – · France (Anacharsis) surrounded by a cryptic, dreamlike atmosphere – harsh, wary and hostile – better · Chile (under negotiation) like an evocative and somehow disturbing fable. than Claudio Morandini.» But do these shouts really exist and are worthy of Zest her study, or everything is just a trick of her mem- ory? And are these strange people really what they «An enchanting prose on a French appear to be, or the distance from the rest of the dark and hidden world.» sample world made them unfitting to any kind of contact DoppioZero available with “someone from the outside”? AS UNSTABLE AS THE LIGHTS’ EFFECTS ON THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES, THE SEESAWERS IS A DARK AND INTENSE NOVEL WHERE TRAGEDY AND COMEDY ARE STRICTLY INTERTWINED. ONCE MORE, CLAUDIO MORANDINI REVEALS HOW BRIEF AND FEEBLE THE EPIPHANIC VISIONS CAN BE OVER THE COURSE OF HUMAN SEASONS. [email protected] CLAUDIO MORANDINIBACK LIST KIDS (10+) LE MASCHERE DI POCACOSA The Masks of Notalot A RICH, INGENIOUS NOVEL, FUNNY AND SPOOKY AT THE SAME TIME AN ENCHANTING AND ORIGINAL STORY ABOUT MOUNTAIN TREES AND BULLIES SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 "LA PAGINA CHE NON C’ERA" AWARD Original Publisher: SALANI 12-year-old Remigio is clever, more than anyone in his class, may- Genre: Children's Novel be even his teachers. And he knows it. The school bullies don’t like «Filled with biting wit, a book like few others.» Pages: 160 his attitude, so they threaten to pay him back for humiliating them when Carnival comes to their mountain village of Notalot. La Stampa Release: Sep 2018 The villagers have always dressed up in costumes and masks for «This is true moun- Carnival but in recent years the atmosphere and the masks have Language: Italian tain life, not the changed, hiding the perpetrators of mischief, chaos, and barbaric sweetened, filtered Rights: World behaviour, terrorising the whole village. version that you re To protect himself, Remigio applies his cleverness to creating a cos- used to reading about tume of his own, a huge and cumbersome suit of armour, but one from Italian writers.» night someone breaks in to smash and shatter it beyond repair. il Giornale In desperation, Remigio runs away that very night into the woods, in search of the only person who can help him: the notorious her- «As the mask slowly mit Bonifacio, who has terrified the village for decades, creeping falls apart, we can around in bizarre costumes made from natural materials. see the young boy for Out on the freezing mountain Remigio passes out, and is pecked what he really is.» by crows, but wakes up inside Bonifacio’s hut, with the old man READ THE Andersen ÍENGLISH SAMPLE! tending his wounds.