Gayle Ridinger

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Gayle Ridinger

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Born
in Boonton, New Jersey, The United States
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PURE by Andrew Miller, THE ORPHAN MASTER'S SON by Adam Johnson, THE LO ...more

Member Since
April 2014


Gayle Ridinger was born in the United States and graduated in English from Oberlin College. She worked as a newspaper reporter in northern Ohio before moving to Milan, Italy in 1981. She presently teaches English and translation techniques at an Italian university. She translated and co-edited the bilingual anthology, ITALIAN POETRY 1950-1990 (Branden/Dante University Press, Boston, 1996), and her translation of SHAVINGS, prose poems by Camillo Sbarbaro, was published by Chelsea Editions, New York, in 2006. She received the “National Translation Prize” from the Italian Ministry of Culture in 1997, and was named Knight of the Star Order of Italian Solidarity by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in 2003.
Her children’s book, A STAR AT T
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Gayle Ridinger One day in 2007, when I was enjoying summer vacation at my parents’ place in America and not in ‘any book-writing phase’, Paolo wrote me an email abou…moreOne day in 2007, when I was enjoying summer vacation at my parents’ place in America and not in ‘any book-writing phase’, Paolo wrote me an email about his idea. There was already a young American reporter reporting on the Italians who fought in the American Civil War. There was the old suitcase full of relics connected to a treasure, which put her life in danger. In short, the start was similar to that of our final book. The ending, however, was a battle between the occult powers within the Catholic Church and some other secret forces. Fortunately this Dan Brown sort of thing got dropped immediately. In any case, Paolo was launching a proposal and a sort of challenge. A novel about Italians and Americans not done in the usual way and under the guise of a best-seller whodunit. I found it interesting.

We are both international types who know each other’s culture very well. I’m of Italian origin on my mother’s side and have lived in Italy for 30 years. Paolo has worked and traveled in America. But in some ways we are fundamentally ‘marked’ by our native countries, and we wanted that to resonate in the book. Above all, we wanted the parts about America to emerge in an American voice and the parts about Italy to emerge from an authentically Italian point of view. Some playful irony perhaps, but no false nostalgia. And then there was the realization that we counter-balanced each other in terms of our passionate interest in history. I had devoured Civil War novels as a teenager and knew Gettysburg well for family reasons; now here in Italy I was enjoying Paolo’s readiness to narrate at the drop of a hat all the battles that had taken place for Italian unification; he’d point out the car window at the countryside and I could see it all happening before my eyes. The realization that the Risorgimento and the Civil War occurred around the same time started our minds going. The fact that President Lincoln asked Garibaldi, the hero of the Italian Risorgimento, to lead Union troops in the Civil War whetted our imagination.
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Average rating: 3.85 · 27 ratings · 10 reviews · 8 distinct works
The Secret Price of History...

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4.50 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2014
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Italian Poetry 1950 to 1990

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2.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1996 — 3 editions
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A Star at the Bottom of the...

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liked it 3.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2002 — 3 editions
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The Shadow Wife

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2007
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The Prose of Other People's...

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to asteraki tis thalassas k...

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More books by Gayle Ridinger…
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