Sister Outsider. The Political Writings of Audre Lorde in Italy
Résumé
My contribution summarizes the genesis of the Italian edition of Audre Lorde’s political essays, Sorella outsider. Gli Scritti politici di Audre Lorde, which I translated with Marta Gianello Guida (Edizioni Il Dito e la Luna, Milano, 2014) and which I re-edited in 2022 for Meltemi. I will stress the fact that it is a collective work based on relationships and motivated by a common interest in Lorde’s work. This has already been present in Italy for decades, thanks to partial translations circulating in the feminist and lesbian movements, a work that, in its final phase, involved many groups in different cities. My contribution then proposes to highlight some of the fundamental themes of Lorde’s thought as articulated in the writings collected in Sister Outsider (which includes The Cancer Journals, Sister Outsider and A Burst of Light, that is, all of Lorde’s most important political writings). I will discuss some of the issues of translation and the solutions adopted, underlining the internal coherence of Lorde’s political and poetic discourse throughout her production, and the integration of poetic text with prose.