SOURCE: Pietralunga, Mark. “Luciano Bianciardi Translates Richard Brautigan: Rebellion at Big Sur.” Romance Languages Annual 10, no. 1 (1998): 345-49.

In the following essay, Pietralunga compares Brautigan's Confederate General from Big Sur to some of the work of its Italian translator, finding biographical and literary similarities between the two writers.

In his “Diario americano 1959-60,” Italo Calvino writes about his impressions of Northern California and, in particular, of those scenic locations near the Monterey peninsula where a number of well known writers had established their residences. In the section entitled “Questi paradisi terrestri,” Calvino observes:

dove viv ono gli scrittori americani, non ci starei morto. Non c'e' altro da fare che sbronzarsi. Un giovanotto che si chiama Dennis Murphy o qualcosa di simile che ha scritto un best-seller, The Sergeant, che ora gli ha tradotto Mondadori nella Medusa gli e' arrivata proprio ora la copia e me la mostra e crede...