ACCLAIMED ITALIAN AUTHOR-SCREENWRITER FRANCESCA MARCIANO TO READ FROM HER 2014 STORY COLLECTION, THE OTHER LANGUAGE, AND OFFER COMMENTARY ON HER AWARD-WINNING 2013 FILM, HONEY

NYS Writers Institute, April 11, 2014
4:15 p.m. Reading | University Hall Room 110, Campus Center, Uptown Campus
7:00 p.m. Film screening and discussion | Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

EVENT DETAILS:
Francesca Marciano, acclaimed Italian novelist who writes in English, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter who writes in Italian, will offer commentary and answer questions following a screening of her new film, HONEY(MIELE, 2013), the story of an assisted suicide activist, on Friday, April 11, 2014 at 7:00 p.m. [note early start time] in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the University at Albany downtown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., she will read from her new collection of short stories, The Other Language (2014), in University Hall Room 110 on the University at Albany uptown campus.  The events are free and open to the public.

PROFILE
Francesca Marciano is an acclaimed Italian novelist and short story writer who writes her fiction in English, and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who writes her scripts in Italian. Her newest book, which she will read from at the 4:15 p.m. afternoon event, is the short story collection, The Other Language (2014), featuring nine tales of 21st century Italians— highly mobile, world-travelling members of the global culture. The stories are set in Africa, New York City, Greece, India, and various regions of Italy.

Author Jhumpa Lahiri, writing in advance praise, said “This is an astonishing collection. Marciano’s characters are caught between the coming and going, unable to call any one place home. They struggle with self-definition. They seek re-invention. [They are] impulsive characters, portrayed in moments of juncture, in moments of crisis, in a series of indelible scenes. Written with extraordinary clarity and elegance, The Other Language is a vision of geography as it grounds us, as it shatters us, as it transforms the soul.” Author Gary Shteyngart said, “You hold in your hands 304 pages of dynamite. These stories are worldly, political, and funny to boot.”

Marciano’s novels include The End of Manners (2009), a story of journalists assigned to document the lives of ordinary women in Afghanistan; Casa Rossa (2003), about three generations of Italian women and their crumbling family farmhouse in Puglia; and Rules of the Wild (1998), about a tight-knit and thoroughly entangled society of European expatriates living in East Africa. Publishers Weekly said of The End of Manners, “This work of fiction, rooted in harsh reality, tackles moral complexities with powerful self-assurance.” The New York Times reviewer called Rules of the Wild, “An intensely romantic novel… worthy of Flaubert.”

A prolific screenwriter, Marciano’s recent films include HONEY (MIELE, 2013), winner of Ecumenical Jury Prize Special Mention at Cannes, where it was also nominated for the Un Certain Regard Award; A FIVE STAR LIFE(2013), winner of Best Comedy of the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists; major Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci’s ME AND YOU(2012); the Oscar-nominated DON’T TELL(2005); and the hit thriller, I’M NOT SCARED(2003).

HONEY will be screened at 7:00 p.m. [note early start time], Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus, and will be followed immediately by a discussion with the screenwriter.

HONEY [MIELE]
Directed by Valeria Golino (Italy, 2013, 96 minutes, color, in Italian with English subtitles). Starring Jasmine Trinca, Carlo Cecchi, Libero De Rienzo

An official selection at Cannes, HONEY is the story of Irene, an “assisted suicide activist” who performs illegal services to assist the terminally ill. She faces a painful dilemma when a healthy man requests her help in ending his life.

Deborah Young of the Hollywood Reporter said of  the film, “Actress Valeria Golino makes a mature transition into directing in a modern-looking character study of a euthanasia activist…. [her] cool, glancing direction remains carefully neutral in the euthanasia debate and should capture audiences on both sides of the controversy.”

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.