Juliet Letters Now in Icon’s Native Language

By James Devitt

More than a year after its initial publication in English, Letters to Juliet, co-authored by Lise Friedman, an adjunct professor at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, has been published in Juliet Capulet’s native language, Italian.

      Co-authored with Friedman’s sister, Ceil Friedman, a freelance art historian and translator who lives in Verona, the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the book chronicles the stories behind the thousands of letters recounting love-lost, found, and remembered that have been sent to Juliet since the 1890s. 

      Originally published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, the Italian language edition has been published by Milan-based TEA. The Italian newspaper Il Venerdi di Repubblica writes that the book’s authors “dug in the archives, but above all met with those who, among the old streets of Verona, guard this strange cult, discovering that the modern myth of Juliet is a mixture of authentic fervor and Italian cleverness."