Throughout this volume, we have paid particular attention to the role of translators as agents mediating D’Annunzio's place in world literature. As a conclusion, we return to the role of translators, this time to consider our contemporary context. To this end, we contacted and interviewed a number of translators, working in different languages, who engaged with D’Annunzio's texts from the late 1970s to today. The questions we asked concerned a range of issues, including the translators’ backgrounds (whether they were familiar with D’Annunzio scholarship, and/or with translation theory), the context of their translation (whether they were commissioned the translation, or else their motivation for choosing this piece/author), their approach to D’Annunzio's style, their goals and who they had in mind as a reader. We also asked them to comment on their stance on aspects of D’Annunzio that were – at least in some contexts – controversial, such as his treatment/portrayal of women, his ideology and his relation to Fascism. We concluded with a question that concerned the value of translating D’Annunzio today, and what aspects of his writing may still speak to contemporary readers.

Establishing contact with translators was not always easy. D’Annunzio, despite the increasing interest in his persona testified by recent biographies, is far from being a popular author in our contemporary moment, and recent translations are thus relatively limited. Moreover, not all translators accepted our invitation. Others answered questions on background and approach but declined to comment on questions of gender and politics.

Even with these limitations, a look at the responses we did receive allows for interesting comparisons to emerge. We have paired the responses from these interviews with comments emerging from other venues, as well, to fill out the ‘story’ of D’Annunzio's place in contemporary translation. These other sources include a blog on translating D’Annunzio by Susan Bassnett (2020) and a recent conference panel at the MLA International Symposium held in Glasgow (2–4 June 2022). What follows is thus a reconstruction that draws on translators’ direct responses, which we quote or summarise as indicated (all quotes come from translators’ responses to our questionnaire unless otherwise noted), seeking not to exhaustively catalogue the responses but rather to ensure a fair representation while also putting translators’ thoughts and experiences into dialogue with one another.