"Il criterio della noia": Fruttero & Lucentini traduttori di Jules Verne

When the collection "Scendendo. Romanzi e racconti di fantascienza sotterranea" is published by Mondadori in 1977, Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini are already a consolidated brand. Successful authors, until 1961 they had worked as editors and translators for the Einaudi publishing house, developing a strong interest in a genre that was unknown in Italy until the collection Le meraviglie del possibile edited in 1958 by Sergio Solmi. This study focuses on the original science fiction theme linked to the chthonic dimension, less evocative than the celestial one but much more symbolic, which includes in the 1977 volume the co-translation of Jules Verne’s "Voyage au centre de la Terre". Reprinted in 1989 for the Einaudi series “Scrittori tradotti da scrittori” with an interesting paratextual apparatus, it is the emblematic example of a mediation that touches on various aspects, from the choice of foreign texts to editorial strategies, and contributes to formulate an idea of translation which dialogues with the unknowns and potential of a literary genre yet to be discovered.