Contemporary Masters Presents Renowned Writer Antonio Tabucchi
BARD’S CONTEMPORARY MASTERS SERIES PRESENTS A PUBLIC TALK BY RENOWNED ITALIAN WRITER ANTONIO TABUCCHI ON OCTOBER 23
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—“Internationally acclaimed as the most original voice in the new generation of Italian writers” (Harvard Book Review), Antonio Tabucchi gives a public lecture at Bard College on Tuesday, October 23. His talk, “Eulogium: In Praise of Literature,” begins at 7:00 p.m. in room 102 of the F. W. Olin Humanities Building. This presentation is part of Norman Manea’s 2007 fall series “Contemporary Masters: Pamuk and Tabucchi,” which offers Bard students and the public the opportunity to meet, debate, and converse with two of the great contemporary European writers of today, Antonio Tabucchi and Orhan Pamuk.
“Tabucchi (visiting writer in residence at Bard) is the intriguing ‘magician’ of current Italian and European fiction,” says noted exiled Romanian writer Norman Manea, Francis Flournoy Professor in European Studies and Culture at Bard. “He is the author of many acclaimed short novels taut with suspense, an elegant and irresistible story-teller, confronting the contradictions and imminent implosion of modernity, as well as the bleak invasion of brutality, corruption, injustice, terror.” A distinguished scholar of Portuguese literature and of its incomparable master Fernando Pessoa, and a traveler to faraway places (India, among others), he displays a worldly knowledge and vision, visible among others in the books to be debated in class (Requiem, Pereira Declares, Indian Nocturne), which are a mesmerizing fusion of morality and art.”
Tabucchi, born in Pisa, Italy, in 1943, is one of the most representative voices in European literature today. Besides being the author of novels, short stories, essays, and plays, he is also editor of the Italian edition of the works of Fernando Pessoa. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages—throughout Europe, the United States, and Latin America, Japan, China (both Taiwan and the Republic of China), and into Hebrew, Arabic, Kurdu, Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi.
Some of Tabucchi’s novels have been adapted for film and directed by renowned Italian and foreign directors such as Roberto Faenza, Alain Corneau, Alain Tanner, and Fernando Lopes, or for the theater under the direction of Giorgio Strehler and Didier Bezace. He has been awarded many prestigious prizes, among them Pen Club, Campiello, and Viareggio-Rèpaci in Italy; Prix Médicis Etranger, Prix Européen de la Littérature, and the Méditerranée in France; the Aristeion in Greece; the Nossack from the Leibniz Academy in Germany; the Europaeischer Staatspreis in Austria; and the Hidalgo and the Francisco Cerecedo prize for freedom of the press, given yearly by the Prince of Asturias in Spain. Tabucchi has also been nominated Officier des Arts et des Lettres in France and Comendador da Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique in Portugal.
He taught (now retired) at the University of Siena and lectures abroad at Bard College and the École de Hautes Études and the Collège de France in Paris.
He writes for many Italian and foreign newspapers (Corriere della Sera, L’Unità, Il manifesto, Le Monde, El Paìs, Diario de Noticìas, La Jornada, Die Allgemeine Zeitung) and cultural magazines such as La Nouvelle Revue Française and Lettre International. He is a member and cofounder of the International Parliament of Writers.
The series “Contemporary Masters: Pamuk and Tabucchi” continues with a public talk by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate in Literature and renowned Turkish novelist, on Tuesday, November 13, at 7:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. On Tuesday, November 20, at 1:30 p.m. in room 115 of the Olin Language Center, the public may attend an open class with Pamuk and Manea.
All events are free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary; seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis. For further information, call 845-758-7439.
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(10/3/07)
Editor's Note: To download a high-resolution press image (300 dpi jpeg) of Antonio Tabucchi, click on the thumbnail below.
