Riccardo and 'Ray'

Last Tuesday I had Riccardo Duranti over to the studio for an afternoon glass of vino. A friend of Franca Cavagnoli’s, Riccardo is, like Franca, a major Italian translator. He is the Italian translator of Raymond Carver, and has also translated Richard Ford.

We spent most of the time talking shop over a couple of glasses of white wine. I was thrilled when he admitted that a book by George Steiner that I’m particularly relishing at the moment, After Babel, was required reading for all and sundry in the translation trade.

He also told me a wonderful story about the first time he met ‘Ray’, when in upstate New York and visiting the great writer’s partner, Tess Gallagher, with whom he had been in lengthy correspondence. It wasn’t until later in the evening that he realized who he was talking with, and he lamented the fact that he hadn’t really read a word of Carver’s work (this was in the early 80s). That night, he happened to be lodged in Carver’s library. Riccardo chuckled with glee as he told me he didn’t get a wink of sleep, but instead spent the entire night reading every short story Carver had written! The rest, I suppose, is history.