One Way

These poems are the first sequence in Erri De Luca’s second book of poetry, Solo Andata, Righe che vanno troppo spesso a capo (One Way, Lines that break all too often), Feltrinelli, 2014 (2005). Neapolitan by birth, Erri De Luca is one of the most renowned writers in Italy today. He is also known for his opposition to the Lyon-Turin high speed train line and being sued for having called for its sabotage. In 2015, Erri De Luca was cleared of inciting criminal damage and he reacted to the verdict by declaring that, “An injustice has been avoided.” Erri De Luca is self-taught in several languages including Ancient Hebrew, Swahili, Russian and Yiddish. He has translated books of the Old Testament from Old Hebrew and written commentaries on the Sacred Texts, as a ‘non-believer’. Having been affiliated to what was known as the revolutionary left in Italy in the 1970s, De Luca has spent his life doing manual jobs. His first book was published in 1989, Non ora, non qui (Not now, not here), but he has been writing continuously since he was 20.