Raun

Ruggero Vasari

Translated by Brendan and Anna Connell

Raun, certainly one of the great works of Futurist drama, if not the greatest, was written by Ruggero Vasari from 1926 to 1927 before being published in 1932. Here, presented in English for the first time in a translation by Brendan and Anna Connell, and with an introduction by Maria Elena Versari, is a dystopian masterpiece that is as relevant today as it was when it was originally composed. Rivaling, in its own way, the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, Raun is a fully-equipped tragedy in which, in the Era of Machines, eugenics are used to dehumanize a society obsessed with technical achievement and which is willing to sacrifice all in order to reach ever more exalted heights.

About the Author
Ruggero Vasari (1898-1968) was an Italian poet and playwright and one of the founders of Italian Futurism. Among his works are the dystopian plays L’angoscia delle macchine (written 1923; published 1925) and Raun (written 1926-1927; published 1932).

About the Translator
Brendan and Anna Connell have together translated numerous texts from Italian, including Alcina and Other Stories by Guido Gozzano (Snuggly Books, 2019).

About Maria Elena Versari
Maria Elena Versari is Visiting Professor of Art History and Theory at Carnegie Mellon University. She received a PhD in Art History with a doctoral dissertation devoted to the international relations of ­Futurism in the 1920s. She has published numerous things, including two monographs, Constantin Brancusi (2005) and Wassily Kandinsky e l’astrattismo (2007), and edited the republication of Ruggero Vasari’s Futurist dystopian dramas in L’angoscia delle macchine e altre sintesi futuriste (2009).

Paperback, 126 pages. Release date: January 31, 2023
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-107-1
Price: US$16.50

Hardcover, 128 pages. Limited edition of 100 copies
Release date: January 31, 2023
Price: US$28.00