Over the past 50 years, contemporary Italian authors familiar to American readers were largely limited to Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, and a handful of others. But thanks in part to the popularity of author Elena Ferrante—the so-called “Ferrante Effect”—the work of a new generation of Italian writers, especially women writers, is arriving in the United States.

To support this growing interest, the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco has commissioned and published LITaly, a brand-new anthology of nine Italian writers, all translated into English for the first time. The publication consists of substantial excerpts from the books of nine Italian authors, translated into English for the first time and enhanced with illustrations created expressly for the project by Roman graphic design studios RAMI and Meneghello.