Nico Bleutge: Di notte splendono le navi

The Casa di Goethe, in collaboration with the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, is pleased to present Di notte splendono le navi (Ships Shine at Night), the first Italian edition of poems by Nico Bleutge, published by La Vita Felice. The author will be joined by Daniela Allocca, Rosa Coppola and Beatrice Occhini of the translation collective wandering translators. The discussion will be moderated by Camilla Miglio (Sapienza Università di Roma).

One of the leading voices in contemporary German-language poetry, Bleutge creates poetic landscapes in constant transformation, where nature, memory and language are intimately intertwined. Across the book’s seven cycles, the sea, trade routes, industrial landscapes and traces of history become the material of a poetry distinguished by its musicality, richly layered imagery and acute sensitivity to perception.

The Italian edition is the result of the collaborative work of wandering translators, a collective founded in Berlin in 2009 and now based in Naples, dedicated to bringing contemporary German-language poetry to Italian readers through a shared approach to literary translation. The event offers an opportunity to explore Bleutge’s poetic practice while reflecting on the challenges of translating a body of work in which rhythm, sound and syntactic openness are essential.

Nico Bleutge (b. 1972) lives and works in Berlin. Alongside his poetry, he writes essays and collaborates on projects for radio and music theatre. In 2009 he created the radio play wasser. steine for the Austrian broadcaster ORF’s Literatur als Radiokunst series. Since 2010 he has collaborated with composer Arnulf Herrmann on the opera Wasser, which premiered at the Munich Biennale in 2012. His recent publications include the essay collection Drei Fliegen (2020) and the poetry collection schlafbaum-variationen (2023), both published by C.H. Beck. His many honours include the Kranichsteiner Literaturpreis, the Jean Paul Prize, the Düsseldorf Literature Prize, and the Rome Prize Villa Massimo 2018/19.

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