Almost 100 years after the publication of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, in 1924, in Germany a comparison is planned with "The Veranda" by Salvatore Satta, recently translated into German. For the president of the Thomas Mann House in Lübeck, Hans Wißkirchen, The Verandah is «a literary discovery and the translation into German is a long-overdue step that makes up for a major omission» .
His enthusiasm shines through in the intense afterword of Satti's novel, published by Rote Katze in a hardback edition. “It's a work of art in its own right,” says the president, “but it's interesting to see its relationship to Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.”
Equally enthusiastic is the translator Heinz Georg Held for whom even «from a formal point of view Satta unexpectedly enters new literary territories. Far from the conventional narrative flow, he uses an absolutely cutting-edge collage technique."
A continuous postponement of exhilarating judgments until we decide that «Satta sets a new standard here. His sanatorium is represented in a completely different way from Thomas Mann, but in its own way just as innovative, exciting and profound as in “The Magic Mountain”»
An amazing revenge for the first novel of the great writer and jurist from Nuoro, written between 1926 and '28, rejected for the Viareggio Prize, lost and then found in 1981.
Angela Guiso
