Apulian Days
Life before lenses
It took me the first twelve years of my life to discover glasses, or at least their full utility. Not that I hadn’t seen them before, but they were always [...]
The English on the hill
Thirty years ago, on March 8, 1991, the eminent English food writer Patience Gray published “South to the Salento,”for a "New York Times" supplement known as "The Sophisticated Traveler." The [...]
The Hungarian connection
As a youth in the 1960s, I became intoxicated with listening to the wireless, as radio was called in its early days. I was enthralled by that magic box from [...]
My debt to Ol’ Blue Eyes
When you learn a foreign language by teaching yourself, what you miss the most is the possibility of speaking in that language, whether just to practice it or to train [...]
How fragile we are
From the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were hints in the press and suspicion in the medical community that the virus might find a nest not only in [...]
The making of a translator
Things we long for sometimes seem to come true by chance. Or maybe it is a question of choice and destiny, as my Russian friend, the late writer, essayist, and [...]
How green was my valley
This is a cautionary tale, though it may not seem like one at first. In fact, at first it will be a tale about beauty. In that vein, travelers to [...]
The sands of time
Light rain had fallen for most of a virtually sleepless stormy night a few weeks ago. I got up around 6 a.m., when the south-easterly sirocco gale that had blown [...]
One father’s war
This I know: the picture was taken in 1941 by a Rome street photographer while roaming through the city's famous Piazza Navona, a tourist attraction before and after World War [...]
And the rabbi came
Toward the end of June 1990, I drove to the top of the Serra di Spigolizzi, in Salento, to visit two dear friends, the Flemish sculptor Norman Mommens and his [...]
A galaxy far, far away
July was the month. I used to wait for it, yearn for it, dream and daydream of it. July was the time of real vacation, the heart of any school’s [...]
“On the left, over the sea…”
Now, I know you’ll never believe it. And I can't blame you if you don’t. I can hardly believe it myself all these years later. Yes, I had a close [...]
Author
Aldo Magagnino was born in Alezio (Apulia). After a career as a teacher of English he now works fulltime as a literary translator. He now lives in the Apulian town of Presicce, a few miles from Santa Maria di Leuca, land’s end of the Italian boot, with his wife Pina, two dogs, and a variable number of cats.