New review

An intriguing and interesting premise — but the book would shine brighter with a good edit! Vanessa Edwords 5 stars Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2025 This book, "Lu Bummularu" The potter tells us the story of Selinunte 628 B.C., has an intriguing and interesting premise — a slice of early Sicilian history is seen through the lens of a young craftsman and the artisanal pottery product he makes, a ‘bummulu’ or vase. Or perhaps ‘jar’ would be a more natural translation … which bring me to one of my criticisms. But first, the positives. "Lu Bummularu" does what it says on the tin (or jar …) and traces a rich narrative around the founding of the Greek city Selinunte in Sicily, described by the young Obelius whose family sail from Megara Nisea in Greece to launch a new city-state. The journey — both literal and metaphorical — is vividly described with much information on many topics from olive harvesting to quarrying to rubbish collection. The narrative is interspersed with charming drawings and other images illustrating different aspects of the texts and with fragments of the author’s verse. For this reader, the main downside is the quality of the English. I am a translator and hesitate to criticise what I know to be a demanding profession, but the entire book would benefit immeasurably from a close edit by a native speaker. Much of the English is stiff and/or inelegant, while giving tantalising glimpses of what I’m sure is sublime Italian underlying it. This flaw is all the more disturbing given that the English edition’s blurb promotes it as ‘Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy’, concluding that ‘this Historical novel in English for Beginners will make learning English easy and enjoyable’. Leaving aside the sometimes cumbersome style, this is not English for beginners (especially given that the book’s reading age is described as 10-18). From pages chosen at random, children ‘consecrate their toys’ and ‘throw stones or ankle bones into the air’ and Obelius visits ‘the quarry where they extract the volcanic material [and] apply iron wedges’ and refers to the time when Thisbe and Piramo ‘consummated their drama of love as told by our poet lyricists’. The other negative, less important perhaps but still something that trips the attentive reader, is the standard of editing more generally. There are inconsistencies in the formatting, spacing, font and the spelling of some names, and numerous instances of dialogue having opening but no closing quotes. Please put this very promising and intriguing book through a rigorous read for the English and a careful copy edit for the rest so that it can show its full potential and shine as it should!