On October 22, 2025, John Cabot University kicked off the 16th edition of its Italy Reads program with a lecture by writer and translator Riccardo Duranti, the keynote speaker for this year’s edition. Duranti has taught English Literature and Literary Translation for many years at Sapienza University of Rome. In 1996, he received the Italian National Award for translation, and the Catullo prize for poetry translation in 2014. He has translated all of Raymond Carver’s works.
Raymond Carver (1938-1988) was an American poet and writer, mostly famous for his short stories. Italy Reads 2025 is focused on Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, a collection of short stories published in 1981. During his online keynote address, Duranti explored the complex editorial history behind Raymond Carver’s short story collection. Duranti compared Carver’s restored original works with the published and significantly edited versions, highlighting the loss of emotional depth and character development that ensued.
Riccardo Duranti
Duranti offered a compelling exploration of Raymond Carver’s evolution as a writer, from his working-class background and his struggles with alcoholism to the complex and often controversial relationship with his editor, Gordon Lish. Despite these challenges, Carver eventually gained recognition for his short stories, which capture the quiet desperation of ordinary lives.
A Rocky Relationship
As explained by Duranti, Carver’s breakthrough came with the 1981 publication of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, a collection that was heavily edited by Gordon Lish, a prominent editor known for his minimalist aesthetic. Lish drastically altered Carver’s original manuscript, cutting up to 70% of some stories and reshaping their tone and structure. Duranti described this editorial intervention as transformative but also deeply problematic, noting that Carver initially praised Lish’s edits but later expressed distress over the extent of the changes. Carver even pleaded with Lish to restore some stories to their original form, a request that was denied due to contractual constraints.
Duranti framed this editorial dynamic as a paradox: while Lish’s edits propelled Carver to literary fame, they also stripped away much of the emotional nuance and complexity that characterized his original work. Duranti argued that Lish’s minimalist agenda — rooted in a misanthropic and misogynistic worldview — often led to the removal of sentimental or redemptive elements, resulting in stories that were bleaker and more ambiguous than Carver intended.
Short Stories and Shorter Stories
Two short stories served as focal points for Duranti’s analysis: “The Bath” and “So Much Water So Close to Home.” Both were originally published in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love but were later restored to their full versions. In “The Bath,” the edited version ends abruptly, leaving readers with a sense of unresolved tension and mystery. The original version, titled “A Small, Good Thing,” includes a poignant scene of reconciliation between the characters of the grieving parents and the baker, offering emotional closure and a glimpse of human connection. The loss of this ending in Lish’s version undermines the story’s thematic depth, according to Duranti.
In “So Much Water So Close to Home,” Duranti focused on the female narrator, Claire, one of Carver’s most compelling characters. In the original version, the narrator’s emotional journey is richly developed as she grapples with her husband’s disturbing indifference to the body of a murdered girl found during a fishing trip. She relates to the victim, questions her marriage, and ultimately breaks away from her husband. Duranti highlighted the importance of the character’s voice, noting that Carver portrayed her with empathy and complexity, avoiding paternalism or stereotyping. He argued that Lish’s edits diminished her agency and emotional resonance, reflecting the editor’s discomfort with vulnerability and sentimentality.
Duranti described one of Carver’s final short stories, “Errand,” as a piece of historical fiction about the death of Russian author Anton Chekhov. It is an example of how Carver had broadened his characterizations, and it presents parallels to Carver’s own life and death. There is an allusion to the role of the writer as storyteller in the character of the waiter who is charged with the special errand. “It’s as though Carver was thanking Chekhov for his influence in fulfilling the role of storyteller,” suggested Duranti.
Duranti concluded the lecture by reflecting on the broader implications of the Carver-Lish collaboration. He acknowledged that Lish’s editorial skills occasionally enhanced Carver’s work but warned that excessive intervention can distort an author’s vision. He encouraged readers to compare the original and edited versions of Carver’s stories to better understand the impact of editorial choices on literary meaning. Duranti celebrated Carver’s later work as a return to emotional richness and narrative fullness, marking the writer’s recovery from both personal and artistic crises.
