Overview

From one of Europe's most original and brilliant classicists, an inspiring and deeply personal reflection on loss, memory, and what we owe the past and others, inspired by a night spent in Athens' Acropolis Museum One day in late spring, Andrea Marcolongo walks into an outdoor store in Paris to buy a camp bed, a sleeping bag, and a flashlight. Her destination: not a remote forest or mountain peak, but the deserted halls of one of the most famous museums in the world, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, where she has been invited to spend a night completely alone. But it's hard to be truly alone when you're surrounded by the scarred beauty of the Parthenon, lit only by the moon and summoning echoes and ghosts from the past. One of the shadows visiting Marcolongo is that of Lord Elgin, the English diplomat who in the early 19th century orchestrated the controversial removal of the Parthenon marbles from Ottoman Greece to London, where they remain today. The other is the memory of Andrea's father, whose recent death she is still mourning. Drawing on a lifetime of engagement with classical culture and its legacy, Marcolongo examines the burning question of the restitution of works of art removed during the age of imperialism, and the broader issue of the role of power and inequality in the history of art. As the night goes by, however, the empty space left by the missing statues--a wound filled with white plaster--starts evoking other, more personal absences. Surrounded and inspired by the ruins and splendor of the classical world, Marcolongo reflects on the ever-changing relationship between present and past, and on the choices and people that make us who we are, even--or perhaps especially--when we have to leave them behind. The result is a powerful and courageous book, one that crosses time and space to remind us that we cannot live in isolation but are continuously connected and indebted to others. ""Marcolongo is today's Montaigne...There is wisdom and grace here to last the ages.""--André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

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Praise for Starting from Scratch ""In book after book, Andrea Marcolongo has combined an inimitable voice with flawless erudition and great sensitivity... Starting from Scratch illuminates its subject with a modern light.""--Le Monde ""A deep look at our all-too-human fragility... An impassioned and enthralling book.""--Bon Culture (Italy) ""Through her personal reacquaintance with [the Aeneid] at a time of great distress, Andrea Marcolongo has brought it, as it were, back into the conversation and outside the confines of academia... An excellent translation by Will Schutt brilliantly serves Andrea Marcolongo's passionate endorsement of a work of literature written two millennia ago.""--Ilaria Dagnini Brey, Reading in Translation ""Andrea Marcolongo has brought us a book from the future.""--La Stampa (Italy) Praise for The Ingenious Language ""An instant classic.""--Mary Norris, The New Yorker ""Andrea Marcolongo's love of Ancient Greek is infectious in this brilliant meditation on language and life.""―Bookriot ""[Andrea Marcolongo] shows how languages give us new ways of seeing and understanding the world.""―The Guardian ""The Ingenious Language has the potential to change your sense of reality.""―Refinery29 ""Anyone who values the study of language will delight in this spirited defense of the effort being worth the reward.""―Publishers Weekly ""[Andrea Marcolongo's] declaration of love for Ancient Greek does more than celebrate the virtues of its grammar, it shows us modern fools how this language can help us understand ourselves better and live a better life.""―Le Monde ""The Ingenious Language is not a grammar text, but a love story with a language and its ability to affect our senses... Rather than reducing the strangeness of ancient Greek to a list of rules to be memorized, Marcolongo uses it to fascinate us, transforming nine linguistic peculiarities into existential questions.""―La Stampa ""The Ingenious Language is an extraordinary, absolutely original book.""―Italian Association for Classic Culture

"Praise for Starting from Scratch ""In book after book, Andrea Marcolongo has combined an inimitable voice with flawless erudition and great sensitivity... Starting from Scratch illuminates its subject with a modern light.""--Le Monde ""A deep look at our all-too-human fragility... An impassioned and enthralling book.""--Bon Culture (Italy) ""Through her personal reacquaintance with [the Aeneid] at a time of great distress, Andrea Marcolongo has brought it, as it were, back into the conversation and outside the confines of academia... An excellent translation by Will Schutt brilliantly serves Andrea Marcolongo's passionate endorsement of a work of literature written two millennia ago.""--Ilaria Dagnini Brey, Reading in Translation ""Andrea Marcolongo has brought us a book from the future.""--La Stampa (Italy) Praise for The Ingenious Language ""An instant classic.""--Mary Norris, The New Yorker ""Andrea Marcolongo's love of Ancient Greek is infectious in this brilliant meditation on language and life.""―Bookriot ""[Andrea Marcolongo] shows how languages give us new ways of seeing and understanding the world.""―The Guardian ""The Ingenious Language has the potential to change your sense of reality.""―Refinery29 ""Anyone who values the study of language will delight in this spirited defense of the effort being worth the reward.""―Publishers Weekly ""[Andrea Marcolongo's] declaration of love for Ancient Greek does more than celebrate the virtues of its grammar, it shows us modern fools how this language can help us understand ourselves better and live a better life.""―Le Monde ""The Ingenious Language is not a grammar text, but a love story with a language and its ability to affect our senses... Rather than reducing the strangeness of ancient Greek to a list of rules to be memorized, Marcolongo uses it to fascinate us, transforming nine linguistic peculiarities into existential questions.""―La Stampa ""The Ingenious Language is an extraordinary, absolutely original book.""―Italian Association for Classic Culture"

Author Information

Andrea Marcolongo is an Italian journalist, writer, Classics scholar, and former speech writer for Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The Ingenious Language (Europa, 2019) was a bestseller in Italy and in many of the other dozen countries in which it has been published. She is also the author of Starting from Scratch: The Life-Changing Lessons of Aeneas (Europa, 2022). She lives in Paris, France. Will Schutt is the author of Westerly, winner of the 2012 Yale Series of Younger Poets award. His translations for Europa Editions include The Ingenious Language by Andrea Marcolongo, The Breaking of a Wave by Fabio Genovesi, and Elena Ferrante's Key Words by Tiziana de Rogatis. He lives in Italy.

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