Antonio Delfini

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Antonio Delfini (born June 10, 1907 in Modena , † February 23, 1963 ibid) was an Italian storyteller, poet and essayist .

life and work

The son of wealthy landowners began his writing as an autodidact in the late 1920s. During this time, together with the later publisher Ugo Guandalini , he founded two literary magazines ("L'Ariete" and "Lo Spettatore italiano"), which were discontinued after a short time due to political pressure. In 1931 “Ritorno in città” was published, a collection of short stories that are stylistically and thematically based on Baudelaire's “Petits poèmes en prose”. In 1935 Delfini moved to Florence , where he made important contacts with some of the most prominent poets and intellectuals of the time ( Romano Bilenchi , Carlo Bo , Carlo Emilio Gadda , Tommaso Landolfi , Mario Luzi , Eugenio Montale ) in the famous literary café Le Giubbe Rosse .

In 1938 “Il ricordo della Basca” (English translation, 1987: “ The last day of youth ”) was published in Florence , a collection of ten stories in which Delfini creates a picture of his hometown - Modena (M ***), in which the author's characteristic entanglement between reality and dream contributes to a peculiar tension. Delfini's political interest was expressed in the 1951 pamphlet publication “Manifesto per un partito conservatore e comunista in Italia”. In 1957 “La Rosina perduta” was published. There you will also find the text of “Fanalino della Battimonda”, published in 1940, which, as an attempt at an “ écriture automatique ”, gave Antonio Delfini the reputation of an “Italian surrealist ”, which could not be accepted without criticism . The author himself expressed skepticism about this labeling. In 1961, the renowned Feltrinelli publishing house published “Poesie della fine del mondo”, in which Delfini's pessimistic view of the world is clearly expressed in lyrical form.

Antonio Delfini died on February 23, 1963. His diaries appeared posthumously in the early 1980s.

Works

  • Ritorno in città , Modena, Vincenzi, 1931.
  • Poetry del Quaderno N. 1 , Modena, Autoedizione, 1932.
  • Il ricordo della Basca , Florence, Parenti, 1938.
  • Il fanalino della Battimonda , Florence, Edizioni di "Rivoluzione", 1940.
  • Manifesto per un partito conservatore e comunista in Italia , Parma, Guanda, 1951.
  • La Rosina perduta , Florence, Vallecchi, 1957.
  • Misa Bovetti e altre cronache , Milan, Scheiwiller, 1960.
  • Poetry della fine del mondo , Milan, Feltrinelli, 1961.
  • Modena 1831. Città della Chartreuse , Milan, Scheiwiller, 1962.
  • I racconti , Milan, Garzanti, 1963 ( Premio Viareggio 1963).
  • Lettere d'amore e Ritorno in città , Parma, Guanda, 1963.
  • Diari 1927-1961 , ed. by Giovanna Delfini and Natalia Ginzburg, Turin, Einaudi, 1982.
  • Manifesto per un partito conservatore e comunista e altri scritti , ed. by Cesare Garboli, Milan, Garzanti, 1997.

in German translation:

  • The last day of youth . Eleven stories and a story , translation and epilogue by Marianne Schneider, Frankfurt / Main, Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, 1987.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Delfini, Antonio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian narrator, poet and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Modena
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1963
Place of death Modena