To be Hitchcockian about it, the story deals with the relationship between [Umberto] Umber, a professor of comparative literature, and a Dr. Jamshid Kloster, an experimental physicist whom Umber meets on a Laguna Beach bench as Diane Keaton, a long-time Laguna Beach resident, strolls by. Umber's other obsession or, perhaps, his deepest regret is that ... he will never be able to know any of “the characters of future novels.” In Hitchcockian terms, that's the McGuffin and as Kloster tells Umber, “If you—re interested in future novels, we must travel to the libraries of the future.” And that's where the story becomes both Borgesian and Contesque as Umber asks Kloster what he will need for that to happen and Kloster replies: “We need a library, four mirrors, and a beautiful sunset.” -- Mark Axelrod

Giuseppe Conte was born in Imperia, Italy and studied at the University of Milan earning a degree in literature in1968. Poetry books include L’Ultimo aprile bianco (The Last White April) and L’Oceano e il Ragazzo. Le stagioni, (The Seasons) won the Montale Prize. The collection titledDialogo del poeta e del messaggero (Dialogue between the Poet and the Messenger), includes the poetry suiteDemocrazia (Democracy) which touches on themes and tones of civil poetry. Ferite e rifioriture (Wounds and reflorescences), which won the Viareggio Prize. Novels include Il terzo ufficiale (The Third Officer In Command) which won the Hemingway Prize, and La casa delle onde(The House of the Waves), about the wreck of Shelley in 1822, and selected by the Strega Prize. Other writings include L’adultera (The Adulteress), a book of essays on travel and myth which won the Manzoni Prize, two opera librettos, three plays, two monumental anthologies, La lirica d’Occidente (Western Lyric Poetry) and La poesia del mondo (The poetry of the World) and a travel book, Terre del mito (Lands of myth). He currently lives in San Remo.

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Robert Buranello was born in Toronto, Ontario, and received his PhD in Italian from the University of Toronto. He has published a number of books and articles in Italian Studies in North America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. He is a recipient of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for Independent Research on Venice and the Veneto and was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rhodes University in South Africa in 2007. His areas of expertise are Early Modern Italian literature and Italian Immigration Studies. His translation of Giuseppe Conte’s I personaggi dei romanzi futuri is his first for Guernica Editions. He is currently Musco Professor of Italian Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. 

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