Lavishly published by Sylph Editions with the Center for Writers and Translators at the American University of Paris, the "Cahiers Series" features some of the most venerable names in literature as they embark on unique explorations in writing and translation. The newest additions to this groundbreaking collection exemplify the mission of the series. "Her Not All Her" is a dramatic work by Nobel Prize - winning writer Elfriede Jelinek, in which she writes to and about the great Swiss writer Robert Walser. In "Diplomat, Actor, Translator, Spy, Bernard Turle" offers a window onto the working life of a translator, from craft and practice to motivations and frustrations. Finally, "Phantoms of Nature", a collaboration between writer Jeffrey Greene and artist Ralph Petty, offers a deeply personal mapping of rural America and the French countryside of Burgundy and the Ardeche.

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" tells the moving tale of an Italian family living in Scotland during the rise of Mussolini and his rule in Italy. The story is told from the point of view of Lucia, the family's daughter, who, at 83, reflects on her childhood. Her tale leads inexorably through the rise of Fascism to the terrible moment in June 1940 when Mussolini declared war on Britain, resulting in the internment of British Italians. Two of Lucia's brothers, Giulio and Emilio, judged to be "enemy aliens," are forced aboard the "Arandora Star," the ship that is to lead them into exile. However, the ship is sunk by a U-boat, and only one of the brothers survives. Lucia is writing now, belatedly, to try to reconcile herself to her past, and as a tribute to her beloved lost brother.
"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is a novel about family, about being an immigrant and dealing with bigotry, about religious sectarianism, political idealism, and disillusionment, about sibling love and sibling rivalry, and about regret, poetry, and war. And of course, it is also about ice cream.