Sardinia
Entry updated 10 March 2025. Tagged: International.
The second largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia (see Italy) has a mountainous interior and is filled with mysterious cone-shaped structures called "nuraghi", fashioned in prehistoric times (likely 1500-400 BCE) out of blocks of basalt from extinct volcanoes. Italian, Sardinian, Catalan, and Arabic are all spoken on the island, which has a complex history of conquests, most notably by the Spanish (1321-1720), but also the Romans, Arabs, Austrians and Italians (in 1861). Officially part of Italy, Sardinia has its own long history and culture, and Sardinian itself is closest to Latin.
Very little is known about who built the nuraghi, though some speculate that it was the Shardan (one of the Sea People of the Bronze Age) who gave the island its name. These structures form the basis of the first (and so far, only) speculative novel from Sardinia to be translated into English: Andrea Atzori's ŠRDN: Dal bronzo e dalla tenebra (2016, trans by Nigel Ross as ŠRDN: From Bronze and Darkness 2017). In Atzori's telling, the Shardans are the gatekeepers of Hell, and their ancestors were the ones who built the nuraghi to keep the demons in the underworld (see Gods and Demons). Now, for some reason, the seals keeping those demons in their place have been broken, and "Incubi" are spreading across the island, killing and destroying anything in their path. It is up to a member of the Antigori clan and a member of the Jana religious order to find the "Shepherd" (who usually captures random stray demons and returns them below) and get him to round up as many Incubi as he can before the island is completely destroyed. ŠRDN was one of a handful of Italian speculative fiction novels published in the late 2010s by the micropress Acheron Books.
Sardinian science fiction writer Clelia Farris also arrived in English in 2017, though only her short fiction has so far been translated. One of her stories, included in Creative Surgery (coll 2020 trans Rachel Cordasco and Jennifer Delare) focuses on archaeological finds on her home island and includes several puns and words from Sardinian, rather than Italian (in which the bulk of the story is written). "Gabola" invites us into the world of fake antiquities, though in this case the eponymous protagonist makes reproductions of ancient pottery to fool the thieves that keep breaking into the sacred tombs on Little Tuvu Hill. This is also part of his effort to save the area from falling into the hands of rapacious developers. The speculative turn in the story comes with Gabola's ability to give people new skills instantly by feeding them modified sea urchin eggs (see Education in SF), yet another way in which Gabola earns money.
It is hoped that more speculative fiction from Sardinia will be translated into English in the near future. [RSCo]
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