Valerio Evangelisti: The Italian Way to Slipstream.

Though popular in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, and widely considered to be the most important modern Italian sf writer, Valerio Evangelisti is almost totally unknown in English-speaking countries, as the ten novels of his Eymerich cycle (plus ten other novels belonging to different genres) have not yet been translated into English. But Evangelisti's fiction is an interesting specimen of the slipstream trend, and his novels based on the historical figure of the Catalan inquisitor Nicolas Eymerich represent a most interesting case study for all those interested in the dynamics of genre hybridization. Moreover, his exploration of the possibilities of cross-genre fiction has taken place in a cultural context quite different from the British and American ones. A synoptic analysis of the novels in the Eymerich cycle can thus be productive for all those interested in the ongoing debate on the border areas of slipstream, New Weird, and Avant-Pop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]