Adventures of Pinocchio

John Hooper is the Italian and Vatican correspondent for The Economist and the author of the bestseller The Italians. He has reported from Italy for more than twenty years and is a lecturer at Stanford University. Anna Kraczyna is a native of Florence, the daughter of American artists who moved to Italy. She has taught at Stanford University and Sarah Lawrence College, and divides her time among translating, interpreting, and lecturing on the language, literature and society of Italy.

“A zingy new translation.” ―The Economist“Perfectly timed. The translators . . . do justice to the story with their insightful annotations and cogent introduction. . . . Who can’t love a story as wildly inventive as [this]? Children certainly love it—and have so for nearly 150 years. But Pinocchio can also grab the interest of any adult willing to engage with the story’s rich tapestry of symbolism, archetypes, and layers of meaning. . . . Should you find yourself watching all or none of the recent and upcoming film adaptations of Pinocchio, this new translation from Penguin Classics is a terrific way to get reacquainted with one of the world’s most popular and important stories.” ―PopMatters“Very lively . . . A fine translation in many ways, and I love the way it brings out the Italianness, and I do like the punch of it. It’s great.” ―Ann Hallamore Caesar, The TLS Podcast“A complex, unsettling novel—miles away from the morality tale that Pinocchio’s story has become . . . Pinocchio harbors a strain of systemic injustice and deep betrayal. . . . Imbued with social criticism and pessimistic humor, [it] can be read, among other things, as an irreverent attack on established authority. . . . As the translators John Hooper and Anna Kraczyna note in a recent critical edition published by Penguin, it’s no coincidence that the utterance ‘Pazienza!’ occurs 15 times throughout the novel. . . . It’s a quintessentially Italian admission of defeat . . . that, as Hooper and Kraczyna note, ‘echoes centuries of unwilling yet unavoidable resignation.’ ” —The Atlantic “An effort to reclaim the spirit of the original, particularly as something distinct from the animated Disney cartoon that most are familiar with . . . Their goal . . . is not dissimilar to that of Matteo Garrone in his wonderfully dark film adaptation: to demonstrate, once again, that Pinocchio is far more than just a children’s story.” ―The Week in Italy“Pinocchio is my go-to book. I’ve read it a hundred times. . . . [It] was very important to me because I always knew I was a wayward kid. . . . I could relate to his desire to explore. . . . He was a bad puppet, a bad son. But in the end, he saved his father. . . . So there’s redemption, and it gives one hope, even at 7. . . . I want to write a book as good as Pinocchio. I want to do one book where I can look at it and go: This deserves the trees that were sacrificed for it. . . . That was always my dream—if I could write a book as good as Pinocchio, then I could say: OK, I did my job.” —Patti Smith on The Ezra Klein Show