During the obligatory trip to the hilltop town of Fiesole she casually mentioned that this was also the venue of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Together, we succeeded in selecting – from the original 100 tales in Boccaccio’s book – 28 stories that would appeal to a contemporary audience through their modernity, radicalism and topicality. His brief was to pare down the stories, letting the pure diamond shine without its setting, so to speak, in order to convey simply the core intentions of the original Decameron. This is a text for troubled times, which will continue to resonate and provide solace for years, if not decades to come. Tales We Tell Ourselves is out now

Source: The Irish Times December 04, 2020 05:26 UTC