About
Dear Reader,
Thank you for visiting. My name is Michael Curtotti and I am an author and translator in my spare time. Recently, I translated Romeo and Juliet into English. Not the Shakespeare play! Rather, Matteo Bandello’s italian novella written near 500 years ago. It was the story which, in translation, inspired Shakespeare’s play.
If you didn’t know there was an Italian story that inspired Shakespeare’s most popular play, you’re not alone. It’s a wonderful story and as you can see it in the right column (on a desktop) and on the “Books and Interviews” page. Matteo Bandello’s version is wonderful in its own right. Several Shakespeare plays, such as Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing owe plots and sub-plots to Matteo Bandello stories.
Bandello wasn’t the only Italian Renaissance writer who influenced Shakespeare. Another was Cinthio, or Giovanni Battista Giraldi. He provided the plots for Othello and Measure for Measure. Currently, I am working on translating his source story for Othello, and I hope to have it out later this year.
More broadly, whenever inspiration strikes, I publish articles, translations or poems here. I have learnt from experience that I can’t predict in advance what I might write about in future. George Orwell’s quote about writing (although he was talking specifically about books) resonates with me:
“One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
A little too negative perhaps, but he captures something. For me there is a sense of joy when a new article or work appears in print, and the journey of creating it is often delightful. Each word, each sentence, sometimes laboured over repeatedly, becomes a friend, coming to mind when you least expect it, and in a sense becoming part of a conversation that is continuously enriched by new voices.
So, for the last fourteen years, I have written on this site. The site’s name is inspired by something that has been part of my life since I can remember: living between worlds – between cultures – and trying to make sense of it. Beyond Foreignness means finding those things, those stories, those connections, that speak to all of us. It is a project that is both intimately personal and universal.
Over time this site has reached hundreds of thousands of readers, with over 500,000 page views and has been read around the world – reaching over 17,000 cities and localities and every country.
The site has grown to over 370 articles and over half a million words. This site has also been my workshop for longer and separately published works, some of which you can see below. I hope you find what you read here interesting, informative, delightful, and sometimes thought provoking. As a whole, the site can be understood as a number of separate, but related, “works” or collections.
Below you will find a brief description of each “work” in reverse chronological order. An entry point for each work is linked below, but also each work is accessible through menu items available on the site.
Shakespeare Begins 2022 – Present
In late 2022, a trip to Italy and the movie Shakespeare in Love, inspired me to start work on translating Matteo Bandello’s Romeo and Juliet. In a way, I discovered that Shakespeare had a lot to teach me about Italian stories. The translation of Romeo and Juliet is the first of what is intended to become a series under the title “Shakespeare Beings. Health and good fortune allowing, I hope Romeo and Juliet will be followed by Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, and other Italian novellas that went on to inspire Shakespeare plays.
Italian Stories 2018 – Present
This work is a series of articles about Italy and all things Italian. Although I was born in Italy, I write as someone who lives far away in Italy. The series seeks to reach beyond stereotypes and seeks to understand how my connection with Italy matters for me at a personal level, but also how the same kinds of questions (irrespective of country) matter for each of us. The first article in the series: Italian Stories from the Godfather to the Fortunate Pilgrim, is a good place to start. The work Who am I to Speak to You of Italy, in semi-poetic form, provides a kind of preliminary synthesis. The articles explore multiple dimensions of Italy including its history, literature, art, music, culture, geography and peoples.
Luigi Capuana, The Dragon the Witch and the Daughters: A Classic Short Story by a master of Verismo translated by Michael Curtotti (2022, 2023)
This short story was originally published on this site as a serialised translation of Luigi Capuana’s novella Il Drago. Capuana was a nineteenth century Sicilian “Verismo” writer. The story brings to life the adventures of two orphan children with “Il Drago”, the “Old Dragon”: an old embittered man who has lost his family but when he encounters the orphans he is forced to live again. My translation is available as an ebook and paperback. It’s a beautiful story, and Capuana is a delightful storyteller.
200 Articles in 200 Days 2017
Written, from April to October 2017, this work explores the life, times, teaching and influence of Bahá’u’lláh, the prophet-founder of the Baha’i Faith. This work is a personal tribute to Bahá’u’lláh’s life and work written for the bicentenary of his birth in 1817.
Miscellaneous Reflections 2013 – Present
This collection include semi-poetic works, essays and other reflections. Among these are Peace Bell – a reflection on a visit to Cowra NSW; Hiroshima and Leo’s Letter (likewise arising from a visit); Agora (a reflection on a movie which invites us to contemplate deep questions about religion, science and the nature of knowledge); reflections on the poetry of Langston Hughes an African American writer of the early 20th century; the wanderings of Medieval English scholars; our conceptions of “western” and “eastern”; the democratic process; on deepest reality; and reflections on the nature of time. A series of essays in the form of movie reviews extend these reflections. A more recent essay looks at the attempt to misuse The Rings of Power to promote racist causes, and why Tolkien would have been horrified.
Human Rights Forebears 2009 – 2014
This are a small collection of biographies and reflections on figures who made notable contributions to the advancement of human rights. I have published a collection of these biographies as an ebook and paperback which introduce the history of human rights through their lives and times. If you want to understand how we truly came to have human rights, and why they matter in the future, it’s not a bad place to start.
The Rights of Non-Citizens 2009 – 2015
This series of articles initially started as human rights advocacy for the rights of non-citizens. It is best accessed using the primary “articles” menu. While most of the articles are my own, others have also contributed, and I warmly acknowledge and thank them for their contributions. Two major essays outlined the major premises of the work.
Do Foreigners have the Same Human Rights as the Rest of Us? (co-authored with Emrys Nekvapil)
These papers were complemented with many articles seeking to foster understanding of the basic implications of human rights through many ways of understanding human relationships across barriers of “citizenship”. Some were translated into Spanish with the kind assistance of Mario Gonzalez. Other writer’s also contributed one of or series of articles during that stage and you can see their work at the links below: Clare Brennan, Roger Hendrix (pen name), Mario Gonzalez (Spanish Translations), Pene Mathew, NeitherHereNorThere (pen name), Emrys Nekvapil.
All these “works” are of course interconnected, as they are all about our shared humanity and indeed our deeper oneness with the world and reality itself.
The by-line for this website, “No lines exist which Sector off the sky So high above Though all the nations of this Earth Are bound about by borders,” is from a tanka poem of the Japanese Emperor Meiji translated by Harold Wright, with some slight amendments by myself.
I look forward to hearing from you if you’re moved to write. You can use the contact form below if you would like to drop me a line.
Michael Curtotti
January 2024