Journal of Italian Translation

294
Journal of Italian Translation
Simonetta Agnello Hornby. The Almond Picker. Translated by Alastair
McEwen. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Pp. x + 315.
With his translation of the novel La mennulara (published by Feltrinelli
in 2002), Alastair McEwen gives English speakers the chance to experience
an enticing slice of life in Sicily in the 1960s. Taking place over just
one month in the small hill town of Roccacolomba, The Almond Picker offers
a prismatic portrait of Maria Rosalia Inzerillo through the reactions
of numerous townspeople as they learn of her death. Known as “la
mennulara,” (Sicilian for almond picker), Inzerillo was the domestic of a
wealthy family, in addition to being a mysterious figure around town.
Rumors regarding her true nature run the gamut, from an illiterate and
insubordinate servant to the lover of her boss, to a drug smuggler with
ties to the mafia. Everyone in town seems to know only a small piece of
the story - if that much - and no one can see beyond their own noses to the
truth. Each character adds another piece to the narrative puzzle until the
surprising truth is revealed. With this - her debut novel - Hornby has
produced an intriguing story full of colorful characters, one that surely
merits comparison with some of her Sicilian literary predecessors, namely
Verga and De Roberto.
Simonetta Agnello Hornby was born in Sicily but has lived in London
for over 30 years and therefore makes a nod to her new home in the
dedication of the translation, which is quite different from that of the original.
The Italian version is simply “alla British Airways,” whereas the translation
is dedicated as follows: “I owe the ‘illumination’ that led me to this
novel to a delay in the Palermo-London flight of 2 September 2000. For
this reason – and perhaps also for the aerial link that permits me to keep
up the connections with both my countries – British Airways has a special
place in this book.” This same text appears in the back of the Italian version,
included among the acknowledgements, but in the English version it
is placed at the very front of the book, so that Hornby may reach out to
her British readers (the translation was also published in the United Kingdom
by Viking in 2005) and establish a personal relationship with them,
drawing them into the intimate setting of the story as well.
Indeed, McEwen’s translation reflects his own British usage and the
result is a very appropriate European feel to the language. Overall, the
reader does not get the sense of reading a translation, but of a British
novel written some forty years ago. There is no question that McEwen -
whose other translations include numerous works by Umberto Eco, as
well Tabucchi, Veronesi, and Baricco - is an accomplished translator who
has mastered George Steiner’s concept of hermeneutic motion in translation
(After Babel [Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998]). In this work, McEwen has
gone beyond Steiner’s first three stages of trust, aggression and incorporation
to the final stage, restitution. That is to say that he allows the beauty
and character of the original language to show through in the translation,