The book "Aeschylus' Oreste" (L'Orestie d'Eschyle), published on June 18, 2026, presents a unique theatrical and literary translation penned by the late Italian poet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini of Aeschylus's famous Greek trilogy. This work, published in the French language, is one hundred and seventy-six pages of medium length, and is published by Éditions Espaces 34 (Éditions Espaces 34), a publishing house specializing in theatrical texts, under the direction of Stanislas Nordi. The book was published with financial support from the Directorate.Regional Office for Cultural Affairs in the Occitanie region of France, and is on sale at a price of nineteen euros.
The roots of this work go back to 1959, when the Italian actor and director Vittorio Gassman asked Pasolini to write a contemporary Italian translation of the Oresteia trilogy (which includes the plays: Agamemnon, The Sacrifice Bearers, and The Eumenides) for the purpose of performing it on the stage of the Greek Theater in Siracusa. This assignment resulted in the birth of a unique literary text characterized by extreme fidelity to the Greek original, and at the same timeIt bears Pasolini's special intellectual and poetic imprint. Pasolini described his passionate relationship with the text, saying that he pounced on it to devour it like a predatory animal, or a dog biting a bone packed with lean flesh, out of sight.This translation acquires exceptional importance in Pasolini's career. His deep dive into the tragic world of Aeschylus formed the nucleus and basic foundation from which many of his later theatrical, poetic, and cinematic works emerged. This influence is clearly evident in his play “Pylade”, which is a direct continuation of the trilogy, and in his introductory documentary film “Memoirs for an African Oreste”, leading to his two world cinematic masterpieces “Oedipus Rex” and “Medea”. It should be noted that this editionFrench based on the original text registered with rights to Garzanti House in Milan since 2020.
