Adelphi Edizioni

Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. is an Italian publishing house whose headquarters are in 14, via S. Giovanni sul Muro, Milan, Italy.

Adelphi Edizioni was founded in 1962 by Luciano Foà and Roberto Olivetti. Contributors have included Roberto Bazlen, Giorgio Colli, Sergio Solmi, Claudio Rugafiori and Roberto Calasso, the last of whom became editorial director. Since 2001 the company has published the literary magazine Adelphiana, whose articles are available online . Currently (in 2006), 48% of Adelphi is owned by Rcs MediaGroup (the publisher of Corriere della Sera).

Publishing approach

Adelphi is often associated in Italy with the spread of Middle-European culture.^[1] Up until the beginning of the 1970s, mitteleuropean literature was looked upon with suspect in Italy, but from the mid 1970s the taste for it evolved. In France, by comparison, it took grip from the 1980s, while in Germany is still met with difficulty.^[2] An example is Austrian author Alexander Lernet-Holenia, which is not republished in Germany, where is often dismissed as "too cynic, shallow, witty, and is considered as some kind of juggler."^[2]

Adelphi usually published no introductions, and abhorrs the typical "storico-literary contextualization," in which "some academic, maybe a mediocre one looking for credits, warns the reader and frames the book in a way that wipes out its best qualities. We prefer the text to speak for themselves."^[3] In some cases introductions have been published, like the "unpredictable and masterful" ones by J. Rodolfo Wilcock or Giorgio Manganelli.^[3] The publishing house is known for introducing to the Italian reading public notably demanding works of literature and philosophy in translation. The history of Adephi began with a critical edition of Nietzsche, that Einaudi refused to publish, and that Adelphi did in collaboration with Éditions Gallimard and Walter de Gruyter.^[1]

Foreign authors published include: Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Walser, Max Stirner, Georges Simenon, Vladimir Nabokov, William Somerset Maugham, Georges Dumézil, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, René Guénon, Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Gottfried Benn, René Daumal, Jack London, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Roth, Elias Canetti, Oliver Sacks, Mordecai Richler, Thomas Bernhard, Bruce Chatwin and Milan Kundera. Italian authors include Roberto Calasso, Leonardo Sciascia, Benedetto Croce, Mario Brelich, Tommaso Landolfi, Goffredo Parise, Ennio Flaiano, Giorgio Manganelli, Alberto Savinio, Giorgio Colli, Cristina Campo, Anna Maria Ortese, Benedetta Craveri, and Salvatore Niffoi (winner of the 2006 Premio Strega).

Among the bestsellers, 101 Zen Stories and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In 1977 they started their scientific series with Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind, that also became a significant selling success. Adelphi director Roberto Calasso said that their scientific series centers around Hofstadter's 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach.

References

1. 1 2 Stefano Paolo L'Italia ignorava l' Oriente, lo scoprimmo noi, interview with Roberto Calasso, in Corriere della Sera, May 3rd, 2010, p.31
2. 1 2 Paolo Di Stefano (2010) Potresti anche dirmi grazie p.86-7
3. 1 2 Di Stefano (2010) p.90

External links

• Adelphi Editore (Italian)
• Adelphiana (Italian)