The Art of Joy

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If it’s true that every book has a destiny, then I myself certainly played a part in that of The Art of Joy, from the time I met Goliarda in 1975 through the editing of the novel that Goliarda delegated entirely to me. Her sudden death in 1996 subsequently bound me inextricably to that destiny since at that point, the responsibility of letting Modesta’s story — completed years earlier in 1976 — live or die was mine alone. Repeatedly rejected by major publishers in its day, the manuscript lay for decades in a chest in my office, awaiting more fortunate times. Those times never came. Until Goliarda died.

Then I had a thousand copies of The Art of Joy published at my own expense under the imprint of Stampa Alternativa. The year was 1998. Copies were sent to a number of critics and writers. The book was passed over in silence. I remember going each day to a Feltrinelli bookstore which kept two copies of the novel behind some other volumes high on a shelf hidden behind a column. Each time I asked myself: who on earth is going to buy it? One day I noticed that one of the copies was missing. I don’t know what I would have given to know the identity of that one lone buyer. After a time the other copy disappeared as well. It was astounding.

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