Selling Ultima’s Magic: Bless Me, Ultima’s Italian Editions

In this essay I analyze Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima’s Italian editions, in order to understand if the political and cultural force of Anaya’s novel had and still has in the United States is evident in the Italian editions. It is my opinion that the Italian reader is led to misunderstand the meaning of being a Chicano, the importance of contact cultural zones and different cultural inheritances, because the dialogue of different traditions is neutralized by a central focus on Ultima in the Italian translation of the novel’s title (La magia di Ultima, that is “Ultima’s Magic”) and the cover images that go with the text. The reference to “magic” neutralizes the Catholic part of the title, and it seems that the Italian publishing house has preferred to link the novel to the Latin American literary boom of the 20th century and its idea of magic realism rather than Chicano history and culture. Of course, this could be understood as a marketing strategy, even though the historical and cultural message of the novel is manipulated in this way.