Is There Something in the Air?

Roberto Piumini's poem in about 30 languages, including Basque.

A “playful antivirus” made of words that cross borders and fly all around the world to enter the homes of boys and girls. The children’s rhyme about the coronavirus Is There Something in the Air? (Che cos’è che in aria vola?), written by Roberto Piumini, one of Italy’s most beloved children’s authors, is now available in about thirty languages thanks to the many translators who volunteered their efforts. Its rhymes about the coronavirus ring out in English, French, Spanish, Galician, German, Russian, Dutch, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Greek, Danish, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Polish, Croatian, Finnish and many other languages, including Basque.

The project is the result of the joint efforts of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF), the Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires (CEATL), the International Federation of Translators (FIT) and the Italian translators’ associations Strade and AITI.

As Roberto Piumini explains, “Words are presents, words are seeds / they’re gifts that we have plenty of / and if they’re good they’re all we need, / when we’re apart, to grow our love”. Even spanning the geographical borders we can’t currently cross.

You will find the poem and its many translations here (click at the very bottom of the page to see the translations).