Written at Night: Ettore Sottsass

The third in our reading series, Written at Night is the fragmented autobiography of Ettore Sottsass, one of the most seminal figures of 20th-century radical design. Originally written in Italian and published posthumously in 2010 as Scritto di notte, it now arrives in English for the first time, translated by one of the most distinguished translators of Italian literature into English, Alastair McEwen.

As he recounts his upbringing in Trento and Turin, his conscription in WWII, his Milan debut, his dance with poverty, and his travels—from Cuba with Hemingway to a snowy Italian night drive with Ginsberg to the fever of India—Written at Night begins as a slow tide into the mind of one of radical design’s greatest figures, only to sweep you up in its storm. Digging through the debris of memory, he finds the precious metals of people and places, so that what he’s writing in the dark is a sweeping blueprint of love, lust, and survival. In his attempts to start from childhood and climb forwards, Sottsass produces a piece of art in and of itself—self-interrupting, self-critical, self-affirming, self-annihilating.

About Ettore Sottsass
Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007) was an Austrian-born Italian postmodernist designer and architect, considered one of the most seminal figures in 20th design, and hailed for co-founding the design collective known as the Memphis Group. Considered a polymath by many, he moved freely between furniture, glass, lamps, jewellery, objects for the home and office, as well as the design of many buildings and interiors, magazines, and publications. Alongside a significant canon of published books, his contribution to design has earned him four Compassi d’Oro. His works are exhibited in the permanent collections of museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

About Alastair McEwen
Alastair McEwen is considered to be one of the most distinguished translators of Italian literature into English. To date, he has published over 100 book-length translations, essays, articles, and poems, plus several feature film scripts and operatic librettos. He has translated some of the most important Italian writers of our time: Umberto Eco, Roberto Calasso, Antonio Tabucchi, Fleur Jaeggy, Alessandro Baricco, Aldo Busi, and many others.