Thursday 23 October, 6.30pm
The Pinocchio Papers
How a 150-year-old Italian puppet became an icon for our times
Talk by John Hooper and Anna Kraczyna
The talk explores the different levels of meaning of The Adventures of Pinocchio. Despite what is widely believed, mendacity is in no way central to the book. Instead, Collodi’s masterwork holds other, much more important messages that explain why, after nearly 150 years, the story of Pinocchio is still inspiring filmmakers and artists of all kinds. The core theme of the book is the importance of education and learning from one’s own experience in order to become a true human being. But The Adventures is also a satire of many of the characteristics of the Italians—characteristics that define Italian society as much today as in the time of Carlo Collodi.
John Hooper and Anna Kraczyna co-authored the annotated translation of The Adventures of Pinocchio for Penguin Classics, which has won praise from a wide range of leading publications, including The Times Literary Supplement, Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, The Sunday Times, and The New Yorker. They also co-authored an article for The New York Times Book Review on Collodi’s masterpiece.
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John Hooper is The Economist’s Italy and Vatican correspondent and author of The Italians. Hooper is an honorary fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and a former lecturer at Stanford University’s campus in Florence. He has been a foreign correspondent for more than 30 years and has reported from over 50 countries for, among others, the BBC, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. Published in 2015, The Italians was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. An earlier book, The Spaniards: A portrait of the new Spain, won the Allen Lane award for a best first work of history or literature. He later published two expanded and revised versions under the title of The New Spaniards.
Anna Kraczyna was born and raised in Florence by American artist parents. She holds dual American and Italian nationality, is bilingual and bicultural, and is fluent in French. She owes her surname to her Russian émigré grandparents, a legacy that enriches her multicultural identity. With a degree in Italian Literature from the University of Florence, where she graduated with honors, Kraczyna lectures on Italian language, literature, and culture at American universities and colleges in Florence, including Stanford University and Sarah Lawrence College. She is frequently invited to speak at academic and cultural institutions in Italy and the United States on the cultural, literary, and contemporary relevance of The Adventures of Pinocchio. Alongside her work as a lecturer, scholar, and translator, Kraczyna is a multi-certified business and life coach who regularly leads cross-cultural workshops for international companies and professionals working in Italy.