"LA VALLE DEL CIELO"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 26

"LA VALLE DEL CIELO"

The first Australian novel to oe translated into the Italian language is Tarltoii Rayment's "Valley of the Sky." This novel, it will be remem-i bered, won the first prize in the British Empire section of the AH .Nations' Novel Competition. The German translation is almost ready for the publishers. The book has been well received on the Continent. One might have .anticipated that a prize-winning story of pioneering effort in a British Dominion would have evoked, at least in England; a striking cover-design, but the London artist, living-far from such epic scenes, saw only the obvious—a Scotsman and his bride, with a few blacks of doubtful origin in the background. The Italian designer, with more artistry, perceiving in the heroic journey of a pioneer into a new land, a parallel with the indomitable courage of the ant transporting a seed —the nucleus «f a new life—to a fresh home, drew a symbolic design; he appreciated the almost insurmountable obstacles that bar the way to both. British publishers have an axiom: He who runs may read the book by its cover—but the Italians believe that their readers give sufficient thought to the cover to-appreciate its symbolism. Flaming red letters, on a loose band,, inform us—"Romanzo Vinoitora del Premio dell' Impero Britannico Mondiale del Romanzo."