Everyone (or almost everyone) knows that it took Ulysses ten years to return to Ithaca, that God created the world in seven days, that Don Quixote's squire was Sancho Panza, and that Hamlet was tormented by doubt. It is less likely that as many people have read the Odyssey, Genesis, Don Quixote, and Hamlet.
There are books on which our culture and our knowledge are based. Only, often, they can seem boring. Or difficult. Or even unpleasant, full of notes and explanations that do not encourage reading. Furthermore, often the new versions of these masterpieces - think of those for children, too simplistic, or certain pop adaptations - do not contribute to giving them new life. If anything, the opposite. At the same time, we must mention the admirable and incessant work that scholars, philologists and critics have never stopped doing to keep alive the interest in the great classics, the exegesis of the text, the history of how and by whom they were composed. Their task is precious and exciting, and it is thanks to them that the discussion on certain works has continued for centuries. But the risk is that the keys to interpretation no longer open the door, that the debate becomes increasingly convoluted, and ends up excluding more and more people.
One thing is certain. Certain heritages cannot be lost. And not only to know who we are, but also who we can become and who we must not become. Without the Odyssey there would not be a lot of beautiful things. There would be no Dante, or at least not as we know him, there would be no Joyce. But, extending the concept to how many minds that timeless work has enlightened, Borges, Kundera, Margaret Atwood, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave or Kendrick Lamar would not be the same. We would not be the same either.
For this reason, at Blackie Edizioni we have decided to republish some great classics, in our own way. Freed from the false (and harmful) patina of boredom that surrounds them, from the complexity of the academy. To make them accessible to all readers, offering them the immense pleasure of discovering these great texts. Approached as the milestones they are, but without the anxiety of those who approach totems that are too high and looming. Our liberated classics, which start from the epics of Ulysses narrated by Homer, are something completely new, and atavistic at the same time. They are editions illustrated with eclecticism and originality, which take Ulysses to a thousand new worlds (as if he hadn't been through enough...) from museums to comics, photo novels, anime or video games. They have texts and notes, but we promise you that they are very different from what you are used to.
