Alessandro Baricco
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Alessandro Baricco (b. January 25, 1958, in Turin) is a popular Italian novelist, dramatist, critic, journalist, and essayist. His novels have been translated into a wide number of languages.
Career
After receiving a philosophy degree under Gianni Vattimo and a piano one at the Conservatory, he published essays of music criticism: Il genio in fuga, 1988), on Gioachino Rossini, and L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin ("Hegel's Soul and the Cows of Wisconsin", 1992), on the relation between music and modernity. He subsequently worked as musical critic for La Repubblica and La Stampa, and hosted talk shows on Rai Tre.Baricco debuted as a novelist with Castelli di rabbia, in 1991.
In 1993 he co-founded in Turin a creative writing school named after J.D.Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The Scuola Holden, currently in its 12th year of activity, hosts a variety of courses about all kinds of narrative techniques, from screenwriting to journalism, from videogames to novel and short-story. Among the teachers have been some of the most prominent artists.
In the following years his fame has enormously grown throughout Europe, with his works always topping the Italian and French best-sellers lists. Larger recognition followed the adaptation of his lucky theatrical monologue Novecento into a movie directed by Oscar prize director Giuseppe Tornatore.
He has also worked with the French band Air; their only release together is City Reading, a mix of the French duo's music with Baricco's reading of his own work City.
In 2003 Baricco moved from Turin to Rome, where he currently lives with wife and son.
Works
Novels
- Castelli di rabbia (mentioning The Crystal Palace), Rizzoli 1991, Tascabili Bompiani 1994; translated as Land of Glass (1991)
- Oceano Mare, Rizzoli 1993; Ocean Sea (1993)
- Seta, Rizzoli 1996; Silk (1996)
- City (original title), Rizzoli 1999
- Senza sangue, Rizzoli 2002; Without Blood (2002) (also published in revised form on The New Yorker)
- Questa storia, Fandango 2005; This Story (2006)
Theater
- Totem, a literary and musical happening staged in various locations throughout Italy with varying structure and contents. Mostly it consisted of a two-night theatrical event in which Baricco himself, helped by director Gabriele Vacis, actor Eugenio Allegri and musician Daniele Sepe, would read and comment chosen bits of literature from all centuries and countries, accompanying them with music. In 2001 Rizzoli published the video of aTotem recorded in Milan in the year 1997.
- Novecento, Feltrinelli 1994; The Legend of 1900 (1994) - originally a monologue for theater staged by director Gabriele Vacis, later adapted into a film by Giuseppe Tornatore: La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano in 1998 (with music composed by Ennio Morricone)
- Davila Roa, staged only once by director Luca Ronconi. Reportedly a huge fiasco, it was never published in written form.
- Omero, Iliade, Feltrinelli 2004 - a rewriting of Homer's Iliad which consisted in 24 chapters, each telling a part of the story through the eyes and words of a prominent character in the poem. The theatrical event from which the book originated was staged only twice due to its logistic difficulties, sincer it spanned over three nights during which the best contemporary Italian actors would impersonate one character each, eight per night.
Cinema
- Partita Spagnola, Audino Editore 2003 (screenplay never shot).
Collected short writings
- Barnum. Cronache dal Grande Show, Feltrinelli 1995
- Barnum 2. Altre cronache del Grande Show, Feltrinelli 1998
- Next. Piccolo libro sulla globalizzazione e il mondo che verrà, Feltrinelli 2002
Essays
- Il genio in fuga. Sul teatro musicale di Rossini, Il Melangolo 1988, Einaudi 1997
- L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin, Garzanti 1992
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