The nobody-can-be-trusted plot is familiar, and some closing revelations about Bravo’s past feel shoehorned in, but the bookthrives on its fast pace—translator Antony Shugaar has taken care to keep the style pulpy yet elevated, in keeping with a hero who’s seen society at its worst but somehow finds time to enjoy the occasional word puzzle. A savvy lowbrow-highbrow thriller. –Kirkus Reviews
The Catholic School, nimbly translated by Antony Shugaar, won the Strega Prize, Italy’s top literary honor. It has garnered comparisons to novels by Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante. –Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
The English translation, done with unflagging vigor by Antony Shugaar, presents readers with a very long novel that feels even longer than it is. The effect is surely intended. –Paul Elie, The New Yorker
You can read Nameless Serenade as a standalone, no problem, but I would urge you to consider getting into one of the best historical thriller series if you can. A lot of credit has to go to Antony Shugaar for a translation that retains the both the thriller and the romance of the original. –Paul Burke, NB Magazine
Hollow Heart was published in Italy in 2013 and reached U.S. readers last month in an accomplished translation by Antony Shugaar. From the start, the press has been enthralled by Di Grado’s distinctive persona, a combination of defiant sound bites (“I don’t believe in influences”) and goth style (she is never seen without mulberry lip stain). What is more surprising than her early success, however, is how fully she has already crafted her aesthetic. –Thea Lenarduzzi, Los Angeles Review of Books
Just the thing to wake you from wintry hibernation, this book is a firecracker. The world of Margherita Dolce Vita jumps from the page into three-dimensional life, fizzing with wit and wisdom. […] What makes this such an exhilarating ride is the language, full of zip and zing, in a tremendous translation by Antony Shugaar. Stefano Benni loves to play with language, his books delight in inventive or specialist vocabulary. Irresistible neologisms and freewheeling imagery are drafted in from the Alamo to the Zambezi, from the desert fox to the sea cucumber. You never know what's coming next. –Harriet Paterson, The Sunday Telegraph
In gleefully biting prose, Nesi excoriates Italy’s politicians, its arrogant economists, and the “titanic foreign multinationals” who “sell their heartless, unimaginative rags and schmattes everywhere around the world,” promising “Giorgio Armani at Walmart costs.”–The New Yorker
Saviano’s novel, The Piranhas, ably translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar, is also set in Naples and follows a group of teenage boys attracted to the gangster lifestyle like moths to a flame.
The novel is expertly translated in a way that conveys the quiet anger of the story by Antony Shugaar. –Paul Burke, NB Magazine
This newcomer to language-based art starts off, impressively, with a riot of language. In just a few pages, an aging musician takes his place alongside classic curmudgeons like Svevo’s Zeno, snarling unapologetically through a list of "Everything I can’t stand." Funny nuggets gleam here and there ("Such good manners, such a smell of death”), and throughout, one has to admire the translator, Antony Shugaar, bringing off near-oxymoronic juxtapositions, veering from the rococo to the slangy. –John Domini, Bookforum
If you want to study how a novel is written, look no further than Italian newcomer Sandrone Dazieri. His cloth-covered American debut, Kill the Father, is impeccable, from the buildup of characters and place to the crisp narrative. He makes tension with a single word, subtle body gesture, breath of exasperation or malevolent eye contact, and any and all vexations go from bad to worse to grave. –Jeffrey Mannix, Durango Telegraph