“Sangue a fiumi nel vecchio West.” Blood Meridian e Cormac McCarthy in Italia

Abstract

While the Hollywood Western movies were remarkably successful in Italy, the American Western novels never enjoyed a warm reception. Such novels were seldom and often poorly translated and the initial reticence of the Italian publishing market towards Cormac McCarthy’s works is testimony to the difficult editorial beginnings of the whole genre. Guida, a small Italian publisher, was the first to buy the translation rights of a McCarthy novel (All the Pretty Horses) in 1993 (The first McCarthy’s work was published in US in 1965). Einaudi, one of the most important Italian publishers, arrived only two years later, publishing the second novel of the Border Trilogy, The Crossing (Oltre il confine, 1995), and then all the McCarthy’s novels. The Italian translation of Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West came out in 1996 (entitled Meridiano di sangue) and, surprisingly, received many good reviews in the Italian journals and newspapers. My essay will investigate the editorial history of Cormac McCarthy in Italy by focusing on the specific case of Blood Meridian.