The Imaginary Life of a Laurel Tree

“Seemingly casual but cannily constructed, Fortunato’s clever tale raises questions about the responsibility fiction writers have for how their work affects readers.” —Booklist

Praise for Mario Fortunato:

“As I read Fortunato’s writing, I have the impression of being faced with that kind of writer, rare in Italian literature, who, despite starting from a poetic state of mind, nevertheless manages to be a storyteller.” —Alberto Moravia

“Mario Fortunato is a natural storyteller.” —Doris Lessing

Mario Fortunato was born in Cir, Calabria, Italy. For three decades, he worked as a literary critic for the Italian current affairs magazine L’Espresso and directed the Italian Cultural Institute in London. In addition to writing novels such as South (Other Press, 2023), a New York Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year, and The Innocent Days of War (Other Press, 2025), he has translated into Italian works by Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James.

Michael F. Moore is the award-winning translator, most recently, of The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, hailed as a landmark literary event. His translations range from twentieth-century classics—Agostino by Alberto Moravia and The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi—to contemporary novels, including Live Bait, by Fabio Genovesi. Moore is the former chair of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund and has a PhD in Italian from New York University. For many years, he was also an interpreter at the United Nations and a full-time staff member of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations.

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