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Angelica Editore is a small publishing house based near Sassari, an old university town in the North-West of Sardinia. It is a limited-liability company with two partners, Lucia Angelica Salaris and Anna  Salaris, who  do most of the work. They also use a freelance team to help with some of the translations, the proof-reading and sometimes part of the editing.
The company was set up in June 2004 and the first book came out in April 2005.

We have started with three series, which are called “I Papassini”, “Gli Azulejos” and “I Sottolio” respectively.

“I Papassini” are books for primary school children. They take their name from a typical Sardinian biscuit: the idea is to suggest something which both looks and tastes good. So far we have published Annamaria Pulina’s “Petulia Tempesta e le lunghe estati che non tornano più (Petulia Tempesta and the long summers which will never return), where the very old and eccentric Petulia entertains a group of children in her strange house on a summer night by telling them some gripping and very amusing stories and making them lose the notion of time.

The second book of the series is “Aivlis torna a casa!” (Aivlis is coming back home!), which the Brazilian psychologist Silvia Helena de Toledo França – who has been living in our town for seven years – has written in Italian. It is currently being printed. It tells the story of a young woman’s encounter with  Aivlis, an eight inch-tall creature, and with her folk, a tiny community of beings which has lived near her house for a long time. These creatures live all over the world, but no other human being can see them, and they have the same feelings and problems as humans.

The two stories are characterized by verbal and situational humour. Both volumes are enriched with the colourful illustrations by the local artist Rosalba Suelzu.

For “Petulia” we have already successfully arranged some reading afternoons in Sardinia, with an actress performing the role of Petulia, who entertains the children in book-shops telling them some of the stories with a jazz accompaniment. Similar performances are going to be arranged on the Italian mainland, both for Petulia and Aivlis.

“Gli Azulejos”  (from the name of the typical Portuguese and Spanish tiles) focuses on contemporary fiction (mainly novels) coming from different countries. The idea is to offer the Italian reader the opportunity to read brilliant works by clever authors which have so far been neglected by bigger publishing houses.

The first “Azulejo” was published in May. It is “Un calore così vicino” (Such a near warmth) by Maruja Torres. In this novel the narrator, on her mother’s death, is given an old photo showing her as a child in the company of a young woman. This woman had been one of the two reference points in her childhood, which would otherwise had been spoilt by the influence of her resentful mother and a malevolent aunt. The story then moves back to thirty-three years before, when she was a little girl living in the “Barrio” in Barcelona.

This is the first novel written by Maruja Torres, a very famous Spanish journalist who has worked for the newspaper “El Pais” for many years. She has written a travel book on her experience in the u.s.a. (Amor America, which was published in Italy by Feltrinelli) and four novels, some of which have won important prizes in Spain. All her books have been published by Alfaguara, one of the biggest Spanish publishing houses.

“I Sottolio” (This Italian word refers to food preserved under olive oil: by this we want ironically to suggest something which stands the test of time) are a series of long essays on specific topics. They mostly deal with music, literature, cinema and art.

The first “Sottolio” is coming out in november 2005. It is called: “Chega de Saudade: storia e storie della Bossa Nova”. It is the most complete work ever on the Bossa Nova, written in a light and ironic tone, and it tells the story of a generation of extraordinarily talented musicians from their youth to the encounter with the most famous American jazz players. It was translated in the u.s.a. with the title “Bossa Nova: The Story of the Music Which Seduced the World”, Chicago Review Press 2003. Ruy Castro, the author, is a famous Brazilian columnist and translator and a versatile writer, whose many books (which include some novels) have been printed by “Companhia das letras”, the greatest publishers in Brazil, and some have been translated in other countries.

We take particular care over the graphic design of our covers, which has been entrusted to the Sardinian artist Massimo Caria, who lives and works in Florence.

Our site  (www.angelicaeditore.it)  includes a part completely devoted to kids under 12. Here they can find information on how a book is made and read the explanation for “difficult words” in the books. There is also Petulia’s e-mail address, to which they can write and get an answer.

As for our programme for next year, it includes 6 works, of which: two “Papassini”, three “Azulejos” and a “Sottolio”.

The “Papassini” will be the second volume of Petulia Tempesta ( where the kids visit Petulia during the winter, as she has asked them to do at the end of the first volume) and Aivlis (where Aivlis is accidentally dropped in the forest by a duck which is flying her back to her country, and while recounting her adventures she gives the young readers information about the problems connected with the Amazonian forest and its population).

The “Sottolio” will be “Tragedia all’italiana: la rappresentazione del terrorismo nel cinema italiano dal ’68 a oggi” (Italian tragedy: the representation of terrorism in the Italian movies from 1968 on), by the Irish scholar Alan O’Leary, who is lecturing in Italian culture at the University of Leeds.

As for the “Azulejos”, one will be of course Maurice Gee’s “Crime Story”. The other two will probably be a novel by a Brazilian author, and a novel by a Spanish writer.

For the year 2007 we intend to bring out eight to ten titles.

Some conferences are going to be arranged both in Sardinia and on the mainland to present these works. For the works of foreign authors we are going to contact the culture departments of their countries’ embassies in Rome.