Antonio Schiavulli came to see me today. He lives in Trieste, but his publishing house is in Monza near Milano. Melita Richter, an old friend from Zagreb, who now lives in Trieste, too, brought him to my place. He is interested in publishing an Italian translation of my Motovun Postcards, which I will finish in a few weeks. He is also interested in translations of my previous two books, Belgrade Postcards (2002) and Istrian Postcards (2003), both of which originally came out in English. I have already put him in touch with Miša Jovanović, my publisher from Belgrade, whose permission would be needed before the entire series could be published. If everything goes well, my three books will be in print by this summer. In short, the meeting went splendidly. To my surprise, Antonio would also wish to sell my paintings via the online gallery attached to his publishing house. He was quite taken by what he saw in my own gallery. The only thing I could not offer him on the spot was the local Teran from my cellar, in which he delighted. Books, paintings, and wines are Antonio’s great loves. Alas, I am not into wines! Not yet.

Addendum I (January 2, 2008)

Well, things change. Although I did finish my last book exactly as planned, everything else went awry. To begin with, Antonio changed his plans before the summer. For some reason, the book was shifted to autumn, as were the previous two. By the time leaves turned red, he stopped responding to my missives, though. I have not heard from him for months now. And then Miša died. Out of the blue. He was my last hope, as I wrote to him in my last missive, which he received a day too late, as it were. Chances are my last book will never appear in print. Perhaps my luck will be rather different with wines. As it turns out, one can never tell about such things.

Addendum II (June 6, 2008)

Every now and then, I remember Antonio Schiavulli, the publisher who disappeared from my life as miraculously as he appeared in it. On such occasions, I am rather sure that the deepest circles of hell are reserved for publishers who desert their hopeful authors without a word of explanation. Just like that. Out of the blue. As though hell does not exist at all, let alone its deepest and most perilous circles.

Addendum III (November 16, 2015)

Antonio Schiavulli crosses my mind every once in a while, but increasingly rarely. The last time I heard from him was some eight years ago. Still puzzled, I just searched for his name on the World Wide Web. All sorts of things popped up on the screen, including photographs of him, but there was next to nothing about his vaunted publishing house. Interestingly, there was an ominous line at the bottom of every page listing the websites where his name could be found: “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.” Wow! Come to think of it, Melita Richter has also disappeared from the scene. So many years ago, we appeared to be on friendly terms, but times have changed. Italy must have been hit hard by the last financial crisis. Chances are that books, paintings, and wines are up shit creek by now.