Giorgio Bassani

Giorgio Bassani ( March 4, 1916 in Bologna, † April 13, 2000 in Rome ) was an Italian writer and poet.

Life

Giorgio Bassani grew up in a home-style liberal Jewish doctor's family. His childhood and youth were spent in Ferrara, where he in 1934 at the local liceo classico passed his Abitur. Despite an initial inclination to music, he devoted himself almost entirely to literature.

Could with a dissertation on Niccolò Tommaseo end - 1935 he began studying literature at the University of Bologna, which he graduated as a commuter and four years later - despite the 1938 Italian racial laws adopted. In 1940 he published his first work, Una città di pianura, which he published under the pseudonym " Giacomo Marchi " in order to avoid Mussolini's racial laws.

From then on, the young writer turned into a political activist in the anti-fascist underground. This commitment earned him 1943, a short sentence one. In the same year he married and left Ferrara in the direction of Florence, and soon afterwards to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life as a writer and publicist.

In 1945 he published a book of poems Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi 1947 Te lucis ante a second. In 1948, he took a job as editor of the literary magazine Botteghe Oscure. 1953 appeared the band Passeggiata prima di cena, 1954 Gli anni di Clelia Trotti ultimi. In the same year he became editor of the journal Paragons, where he met, among others, Pier Paolo Pasolini. 1956 published Bassani Cinque storie Ferrara, with whom he won the Premio Strega same year.

In 1957, he was Vice President of the broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana and president of the cultural and environmental association Italia Nostra and lecturer in theater history at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica in Rome. The following year he published the novel Gli occhiali d' oro ( " The glasses with gold rim " ), in which he described homosexuality as a cause for social ostracism. The book was made ​​into a film in 1987 with Philippe Noiret and Rupert Everett. The Bassani live for historically important issue of homosexuality appears again visited and the short novel Behind the Door (1964).

1958, now an editor at the publishing house Feltrinelli, he managed to bring out the novel The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. A year later he published Le storie ferraresi, an expanded edition of his stories from Ferrara.

The peak of his literary fame reached Bassani in 1962 with the publication of the novel Il Giardino dei Finzi - Contini ( " The Garden of the Finzi - Contini " ), for which he received the Premio Viareggio in the same year. Formally and stylistically a masterpiece that combines the moral, intellectual and political experiences of the author, the novel depicts the life of the rich Jewish bourgeoisie in Ferrara during the late fascism since the racial laws. Vittorio De Sica turned it into a movie, to the Bassani but always kept his distance.

This was followed in 1968, the publication of L' Airone ( " The Heron " ) and 1972 L' odore del fieno ( " The smell of hay "). Published in 1984 Bassani's collected poems under the title In rima e senza and his collected essays and critical writings in the band Di là del cuore.

In April 2000, Giorgio Bassani died after a long illness in Rome. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Ferrara.

Works

First cycle of the " novel of Ferrara "

  • Cinque storie ferraresi, 1956 (Eng. Ferrara stories over v. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich, 1964;. Edition 1985, new edition Wagenbach, Berlin 2007 )
  • Gli occhiali d' oro, 1958 (Eng. A doctor from Ferrara, via v. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich, 1960;. Edition udT The glasses with gold rim, Piper, Munich, 1984; edition Wagenbach, Berlin 2007 )
  • I giardini dei Finzi Contini - 1962 (Eng. The Garden of the Finzi - Contini, over v. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich 1963. Revisions in 1984, 1995, 2004; edition Wagenbach, Berlin 2007 )
  • Dietro la porta, 1964 ( dt Behind the door, trans. V. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich, 1967, new edition 1986)
  • L' Airone, 1968 (Eng. The heron over v. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich, 1970; . Edition Wagenbach 2007)
  • L' odore del fieno, 1972 (Eng. The smell of hay, trans. V. Herbert Schlüter, Piper, Munich, 1974)

2 Other works

  • Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi, 1945 (poetry )
  • La passeggiata prima di cena, 1953
  • Gli anni di Clelia Trotti ultimi, 1956
  • In gran segreto, 1978
  • In rima e senza, 1982 ( Collected Poems, dt selection: In an old Italian garden, Selected and transl v. Michael Marshall of Bieberstein, Piper, Munich, 1991.. )
  • Di là del cuore, 1984 ( Collected essays works )
  • Memories of the Heart, ed. v. Eberhard Schmidt, 1991 ( autobiographical texts and contributions by the editor )
  • Mario Soldati and Gianni Berengo Gardin ( photos): Venice. Built on 118 islands, Josef Keller Verlag, Starnberg 1965.

Honors

Filmography

Screenplays

Literary Text

Italy Anti-fascism Strega Prize Feltrinelli (publisher) Premio Campiello Feltrinelli Prize Senso (film) Long Night in 1943 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (film) The Gold Rimmed Glasses Integrated Authority File
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