Scipio Slataper is one of the most prominent writers from the Italian town of Trieste. Before the onslaught of World War One, Trieste was a unique urban environment and the largest port in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was a financially powerful city and a cosmopolitan centre where Slavic, Germanic, and Italian cultures intersected. Much of Slataper’s oeuvre is highly influenced by Trieste’s cultural complexity and its multi-ethnic environment.

Slataper’s major literary achievement, My Karst and My City – a fictionalized, lyrical autobiography, translated here in its entirety – offers a unique example of an Italian modernist narrative, one that is influenced both by Slataper’s collaboration with the Florentine journal La Voce, and by the Germanic and Scandinavian literature that he absorbed while living in Trieste. My Karst and My City, together with the excerpts from his reflections on Ibsen and other critical essays included here, adds a new voice and a different dimension to our understanding of European modernism.

Scipio Slataper (1888–1915) was an Italian writer, most famous for his lyrical essay My Karst. He is considered, alongside Italo Svevo, as the initiator of the prolific tradition of Italian literature in Trieste.

Scipio Slataper's profile page

Elena Coda is associate head of the School of Languages and Cultures and associate professor of Italian at Purdue University.

Elena Coda's profile page

Nicholas Benson is the translator of volumes by Attilio Bertolucci and Aldo Palazzeschi and the recipient of an NEA Translation Fellowship.

Nicholas Benson's profile page

• Winner, The John Florio Prize awarded by The Society of Authors

"This volume is an important milestone in the literary criticism of Trieste, a valuable companion in future explorations of the Adriatic city that makes Slataper’s rich and multifaceted work finally available in English."

<em>Annali d’italianistica</em>