Sprecher
Beschreibung
A typical day at the ALI: how a literary agency shapes texts and editions
The paper examines the operations of ALI (Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale) from the 1950s to the early 1980s, when the agency was headed by Erich Linder. ALI’s archives – now held in Milan by the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation – together with contemporary interviews and accounts provided by some of Linder’s collaborators, make it possible to reconstruct the agency’s workings during a pivotal period in Italian publishing. A close examination of ALI’s day-to-day activities reveals the systematic and organized approach Linder adopted in managing relationships with authors, publishers, and foreign literary agencies. It also highlights the agent’s central role in shaping texts and editions, not only by offering suggestions and advice on content, translations, paratexts, and publishing strategies, but above all by coordinating the various parties involved.
Speakers bio
Virna Brigatti is associate professor at the University of Milan. She deals with contemporary Italian literature, focusing on the investigation of literary production in the XX Century publishing system, in particular from a philological and ecdotic point of view, paying attention to the papers in the author's and publisher's archives; the subjects she teaches are Literary Communication in XX Century Italy and Editorial Philology. She is the author of two monographs on Elio Vittorini (2016 and 2018); she has produced various essays dedicated to XX century authors and literary issues and in particular to the work of Italo Calvino, with the volume entitled Calvino publishes Calvino. Editions, Indexes and Variations (2025). She is head of unit of the PRIN 2022 project Dear Linder... Stories of texts and editions in the ALI-Erich Linder archive, coordinated together with PI, Monica Zanardo (https://carolinder.disll.unipd.it/ ).
Monica Zanardo is associate professor of Italian literature at Padua university. She studies authors’ archives (manuscripts and personal libraries) from the 18th to the 20th century, with an approach combining filologia d’autore, critique génétique and digital humanities. She especially focused on Elsa Morante (and namely on the manuscripts for History. A novel, to which she devoted her monograph Il poeta e la grazia, published in 2017) and on Vittorio Alfieri (a new critical edition of the author’s autobiography is forthcoming, and she is co-responsible, with Christian Del Vento, of the project Digital Alfieri). With Virna Brigatti she co-led the PRIN project (Project of Relevant National Interest) Dear Linder… histories of texts and editions in the ALI-Erich Linder archives, focusing on the archives of the ALI – International Literary Agency.