Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Dana Gioia - Mario Luzi / Peter Covino - Livia De Stefani
of the National Endowment for the Arts.
169
Livia De Stefani was born in Palermo in 1914 and died in Rome
in 1991. During her lifetime De Stefani was a well-known prose
writer; among her best known works were La vigna di uve nere (1953),
which was also made into a television movie and translated into
English as The Forbidden (1958); Passione di Rosa (1958, translated as
Rosa); La stella Assenzio (1987); and, just before her death, La mafia
alle mie spalle (1991). An early poetry collection, Preludio, appeared
in 1940. After her death, attention to her work was encouraged by
Italian journalist and poet Mauizio Gregorini, who edited Poesie in
diesis (2002), which includes the “Nocturnes” translated here.
Peter Covino was born in Italy and educated there and in the
United States. He is a founding editor of the poetry journal Barrow
Street and of Barrow Street Press. He has published a chapbook of
poems, Straight Boyfriend (2001, winner of the Frank O’Hara Chapbook
Prize), and a full-length collection, Cut off the Ears of Winter
(2005, winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award). He teaches at
the University of Rhode Island.