Luis Fayad. Dalla narrativa urbana agli innesti socioculturali. Presentazione

The article looks at Luis Fayad’s novel La caída de los puntos cardinales (2000) in order to foreground the influence of Arabic on the Colom- bian author whose grandparents were Lebanese. Born in Bogotá in 1945, Fayad published the novel after being identified as one of the first Colombian novelists dealing with urban literature. It represents a change of direction in his career, as Fayad narrates the entire life of six main characters, four men and two women, who decide to leave Lebanon and migrate to South America, ending up in Colombia. The analysis will focus on the importance of the circulation of the book in Italy by virtue of issues of intercultural exchange embedded in the novel. La caída de los puntos cardinales mixes Arabic tradition and Colombian customs; in the novel, Fayad achieves a cross-cultural story that may provide a successful model of integration. The Spanish-Italian translation and a critical approach to the language used by the novelist and employed by the translator will complete the essay.