Seda - Alessandro Baricco

Seda - Alessandro Baricco

Translated from Italian into Occitan by Corinne Lhéritier.

Seta (Silk in english, Seda in Occitan) is the third novel by the Italian author Alessandro Baricco, published in 1996 in Italy. This is a fable about love and the meaning of life, through a long travel on the Silk Road in 19th century Japan.

« Aquò’s pas un roman. Es pas tanpauc un raconte. Aquò’s una istòria. Debuta amb un òme que traversa lo mond, e s’acaba amb un lac, qu’es aquí, un jorn de vent. A l’òme li dison Hervé Joncour. Al lac, se sap pas. »

Suffice to say that we can not tell the book nor sum it up!
Perhaps because Alessandro Baricco studied music first, Seda resembles an epic song.
Perhaps because he also studied philosophy, time stretches in a somewhat unknown rhythm, following the round-trips of Herve Joncour.



The author (of the translation):

Corinne Lhéritier was born in 1966 in Alès (Gard). Tanned between Nimes and the Cévennes, between the "patois", and the return to the language of the father, she is a teacher in Calandreta. It is this work of regent that drives her to make translations on translations for her classes: technical sheets, documentaries, novels, first readings ...
It is from the encounter with Italian and the passion for the language and the country, that was born the idea to translate Seta of Alessandro Baricco.
She also translated the comic "Los ignorants" by Etienne Davodeau.


Editions I.E.O. Languedoc, 2012.

Original title: Seta - Alessandro Baricco (Milano : Rizzoli, 1996 - La Scala - ISBN 88-17-66059-0).