Synopses & Reviews
Fiction. Translated from the Italian by Beppe Cavatorta and Polly Geller. Recipient of the 1966 "Ferro di Cavallo" prize for a first novel, THE PORTHOLE was a highly praised and controversial debut. Pulling together diverse elements from the musical experiments of Cage, Schnebel and Kagel, the pictorial innovations of assemblage and pop art, x-rated comics, and dialogue from horror and World War II films, Spatola liberated his narrative from the stultifying edifice of Italian prose. The Porthole remains even more important today for its remarkable achievement in that fertile period of experimental literature. A co-publication of Otis Books/Seismicity Editions and Agincourt Press.
About the Author
Since coming on the scene at age 23 with L'ebreo negro (1964), Adriano Spatola was, until his death in 1988, at the forefront of neo-avant-garde and experimental writing worldwide. Spatola made his distinct contribution not only as a poet, but also as an editor and critic. Spatola left Rome and moved to the country outside Parma to found his own publishing house, Edizioni Geiger, in 1968, and the magazine TamTam, in 1970. In 2008, Spatola's THE POSITION OF THINGS: COLLECTED POEMS 1961-1992 appeared from Green Integer books, as well as his groundbreaking study, TOWARD TOTAL POETRY, from Otis Books/Seismicity Editions. In 2011, Otis Books/Seismicity Editions and Agincourt Press co-published an English translation of Spatola's first novel, THE PORTHOLE.