Book presentation and readings
Week of the Italian Language
ATTILIO BERTOLUCCI is considered one of the foremost Italian poets of the twentieth century. He was born in 1911 near Parma, Italy, and died in 2000 in Rome. A literary critic and translator as well as a poet, his verse is noted for its directness, which was a striking departure from contemporary poetry and the Italian Hermetic tradition. At age 18 Bertolucci published Sirio ( “Sirius”), a volume of twenty-seven poems set in his native region. After attending the University of Parma (1931–35), where he studied law, and the University of Bologna (1935–38), he began teaching art history and contributing to such journals as Circoli, Letteratura, and Corrente. In 1951 Bertolucci moved to Rome and published La capanna indiana (“The Indian Hut”), which earned him the Premio Viareggio in 1951. La camera da letto (1984 “The Bedroom”), winner of a second Viareggio prize, is a long autobiographical poem tracing the history of his family, a subject that inspired much of his work. Bertolucci’s other books of poetry include Fuochi in novembre (1934; “Fires in November”), Viaggio d’inverno (1971; “Winter Voyage”), the bilingual collection Selected Poems (1993), La lucertola di Casarola (1997; “The Lizard of Casarola”), and Opere (1997). He also translated works by Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Love Peacock, D.H. Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy.
From 1975, together with Enzo Siciliano and Alberto Moravia, he directed the literary
review Nuovi Argomenti. Bertolucci’s sons, Bernardo and Giuseppe, are noted filmmakers.
Luigi Fontanella (Ph.D. Harvard) is professor of Italian at Stony Brook University. Poet, critic, translator, and novelist, he has published fifteen books of poetry, nine books of criticism, and three books of narrative. His most recent volumes are: Pasolini rilegge Pasolini (Rizzoli, 2005, translated into various languages), Controfigura (novel, Marsilio, 2009), L’angelo della neve (Mondadori, Almanacco dello Specchio, 2009); Migrating Words. Italian Writers in the United States (Bordighera, 2012), Bertgang (Moretti & Vitali, 2012, Prata Prize, I Murazzi Prize), and Disunita Ombra (Archinto, Rizzoli, 2013). He is the President of IPA (Italian Poetry in America) and editor of Gradiva (Prize for Translation by the “Ministero dei Beni Culturali”). In 2005 President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, nominated Fontanella “Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana”.
Luigi Bonaffini is professor of Italian language and literature at Brooklyn College. His
publications include La poesia visionaria di Dino Campana; and translations of books by
numerous authors, including Dino Campana, Mario Luzi, Vittorio Sereni, Giose Rimanelli,
Giuseppe Jovine, Achille Serrao, Eugenio Cirese, Albino Pierro, Cesare Ruffato, Stephen
Massimilla, Antonio Spagnuolo, Luciano Troisio, Pier Paolo Pasolini. He has also translated
widely from dialect poetry for various publications.
He edited the trilingual anthology Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy; co-edited Via terra.
An anthology of Contemporary Italian Dialect Poetry, and Poesia dialettale del Molise, a
trilingual anthology of poetry in the Molisan dialect; with Achille Serrao Dialect Poetry of
Northern and Central Italy and The Bread and the Rose. A trilingual anthology of Neapolitan
Poetry from the Sixteenth Century to the Present.
More recently he has co-edited the bilingual anthologies A New Map: The Poetry of
Migrant Writers in Italy (2011) and Poets of the Italian Diaspora (2014)
He is the editor of Journal of Italian Translation.
He has received several awards, including the 2003 Italian National Translation Prize.