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Last 8 March 2022 ‘Almanacco dell’Italia occulta: Orrore popolare e inquietudini metropolitane’ hit the first position of the top-ten parade of ‘Wonderland’, a Rai4 programme devoted to fantasy, science fiction and horror. The lavishly illustrated book was edited by Dr Fabrizio Foni, Senior Lecturer in Italian and member of the Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies, together with Prof. Fabio Camilletti (University of Warwick). In investigating the Italian equivalents, given the different context, of British folk horror and urban wyrd, ‘Almanacco dell’Italia occulta’ examines pop culture and folklore at all levels and media: literature, cinema, television, crime news, music, comics and urban legends.

 

The book is the follow-up to ‘Almanacco dell’orrore popolare: Folk horror e immaginario italiano’, also edited by Prof. Camilletti and Dr Foni, which on 8 June 2021 peaked at number 2 of the above-mentioned TV programme’s parade. In both works, the deployment of the expression ‘orrore popolare’ does justice to the historically peculiar and inextricable merging of folklore and pop in the Italian cultural landscape and, at the same time, urges a reappraisal, in light of such a fertile mixture, of numerous cultural products which have wrongly been labelled as either ephemeral and merely derivative, or rooted in a stereotypically cheerful and/or sunny ‘Italianness’.

 

Both books feature an evocative back-cover illustration by the Maltese artist Joseph Bugeja. to the ‘Wonderland’ 8 March 2022 episode.