Until the appearance of All the Errors in 1990, Giorgio Manganelli's works had been translated into every major Western language except English: Henry Martin's fluid translation redresses the oversight of this eloquent, meticulous Italian master, presenting a book of Manganelli's distinctively original shorter fictions. These are seven narratives of metaphysical exploration.


“Each of the seven stories is an exploration of the voyage we embark upon at birth. When an about-to-be-born child bids farewell to the lifehe has led in the womb (‘Leave-taking“), birth is seen as an ending of life, for it begins the journey toward death — but the child will not be exempted, as it wishes, ‘from its task of existing.“ In ‘Lovers,“ a man and a woman, in separate soliloquies, explore the ties that bind them. ‘Travel Notes“ and ‘The Betrothal,“ both superficially more conventional, are accounts of men who venture out on journeys, which begin unexceptionally: a hiker in the mountains seeks shelter for a night, and a bridegroom takes a walk around the town before the wedding. But both end in a surreal world, where time and the usual rules play no part. The narrator of ‘The Self-awareness of the Labyrinth“ ponders on the identity of the labyrinth in which he finds himself: it is both life in the abstract and his own creation. Perhaps the most abstract story is ‘System,“ in which essences of fire and water and other life forms are confounded by the reality of the Figure and the Non-figure, both intent on their game, and indifferent to all other forms. Reading at its most demanding and thought-provoking: Manganelli insists that we explore fundamental questions in the most rigorous and intellectually challenging way. There are no short cuts, but the effort has its rewards...”
— Kirkus Reviews

“All the Errors offers massive doses of that ineffable effect known as ‘the pleasure of reading,“ and the reader must be prepared to hold up his own end of the bargain, since the pleasure of reading is not to be separated from a certain measure of annoyance, disquietude, and even fear.”
— Corriere della Sera

“[Manganelli's] material is fragments of our consciousness and experience; he writes probing analyses of states of mind and relationships in showy, artful language.”
— Library Journal

“As in Beckett, there's also something a bit monstrous in Manganelli's meticulously dispassionate gaze. All the Errors is remarkable for the cold glint of Manganelli's eloquence and the surrealistic precision of his imagination.”
— New York Press

“[These stories] surprise us with their dreamlike quality, while being extrememly geometric, calculated, and systematic. ... But authentic narration emerges, almost inadvertently, from an uninterrupted verbal elegance, and one state of mind transforms into another as discourse again assumes the dimension of a genuine tale.”
— Giornale di Sicilia

“In Italy, Giorgio Manganelli was considered a national literary treasure. His quirkish wit, his elusive irony, his keen eye, his elegant style regularly won him praise.... Henry Martin has been able to capture and retain, in his English version, the singular qualities of Manganelli's prose. This volume will be prized for two reasons: for its intrinsic worth and seductive imagination, and for its introduction of an Italian master.”
— William Weaver [translator of Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, etc.]