Gomorrah. Crime goes global, language stays local

The crime narratives recorded by the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano in his book Gomorrah constitute an exposé of the real criminal activities of the Camorra. As a consequence, Saviano received so many death threats from the Camorra that he was assigned police protection. Gomorrah – which has been adapted for the Italian stage and turned into a film of the same name - has been translated into 33 languages. It is deeply embedded within its Neapolitan socio-cultural context and texts dealing with such highly culture-specific issues represent a real challenge for translators. This article considers this challenge, focusing on the film version of Saviano’s text. In cinematic form, a translation itself from a literary to a visual format, the double-step of linguistic translation from Neapolitan into standard Italian, and then into English subtitles unavoidably deprives the film of much of its realism and authenticity. National and personal identities are displaced, the social mechanisms of language are neutralised and significant ‘contextualisation cues’ pass unnoticed; in effect, a new crime narrative is created.