There is a faint but lingering scent of Abruzzesity in the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Han Kang. If only because Lia Iovenitti, a literary translator from L’Aquila who lives in Seoul, edited the Italian translation and revision of “The Greek Hour,” the South Korean writer’s new novel.
The motivation for the Nobel award reads, “For her intense poetic prose that addresses historical trauma and exposes the fragility of human life,” and from here one might understand how the affinities between South Korea andAbruzzo and between Seoul and L’Aquila may have guided Lia Iovenitti in her important work.
Lia Iovenitti was born in 1973 in L’Aquila to a father from Tempera and a mother from Pianola. She studied Japanese in Venice and went to Japan but was not located there and moved to Korea. In a nice social interview with “The Abruzzese Offsite,” Lia Iovenitti very naturally explains that she feels at home in South Korea because of the way of being of Koreans that closely resembles that of the Abruzzese. A writer for whom she translates works invites her home, cooks her a Korean version of arrosticini, and the bridge of words, books and literary satisfaction between the West and the Far East is served. But here at the table, accompanying the arrosticini is rice and not bread. Little harm because, given the results achieved, a small gastronomic sacrifice may well fit.
