Antonio Tabucchi
Encyclopedia
Antonio Tabucchi is an Italian writer and academic who teaches Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena
, Italy.
Deeply in love with Portugal
, he is an expert, critic and translator of the works of the writer Fernando Pessoa
from whom he drew the conceptions of saudade
, of fiction and of the heteronym
s. Tabucchi was first introduced to Pessoa's works in the 1960s when attending the Sorbonne
. He was so charmed that, back in Italy, he attended a course of Portuguese language
for a better comprehension of the poet.
His books and essays have been translated in 18 countries, including Japan
. Together with his wife, María José de Lancastre, he translated many works by Pessoa into Italian and has written a book of essays and a comedy about the writer.
Tabucchi has been awarded the French prize "Médicis étranger" for Nocturne indien (Notturno indiano) and the premio Campiello
, and the Aristeion Prize
for Sostiene Pereira.
but grew up at his maternal grandparents' home in Vecchiano
, a nearby village.
During his years at university, he travelled widely around Europe
on the trail of the authors he had encountered in his uncle's library. During one of these journeys, he found the poem "Tabacaria" (tobacco shop) in a bookstall near the Gare de Lyon
in Paris, signed by Alvaro de Campos
, one of the heteronyms (a kind of poetical personality) of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa
. It was in the French translation by Pierre Hourcade. From the pages of this libel he extracted the intuition of his interest in his future life for at least twenty years.
A visit to Lisbon
sparked his love of the city of the fado
and of that country as a whole. As a result, he graduated in 1969 with a thesis on "Surrealism in Portugal". He specialized at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
in the seventies and in 1973 he was appointed as teacher of Portuguese Language and Literature in Bologna
.
That year he wrote his first novel, Piazza d'Italia (Bompiani 1975), in which he tried to describe history from the losers' point of view, in this case the Tuscan anarchists, in the tradition of great Italian writers of a more or less recent past, such as Giovanni Verga
, Federico De Roberto
, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
, Beppe Fenoglio
, and contemporary authors, like Vincenzo Consolo
.
, and published Il piccolo naviglio, followed by Il gioco del rovescio e altri racconti in 1981, and Donna di porto Pim (1983). His first important novel, Notturno indiano, was published in 1984, and became the basis of a 1989 a film directed by Alain Corneau
. The protagonist tries to trace a friend who has disappeared in India
but is actually searching for his own identity.
He published Piccoli equivoci senza importanza in 1985 and, the next year, Il filo dell'orizzonte. This novel features another protagonist (Spino) on a quest to discover something (here, the identity of a corpse) but who is also looking for his own identity—which was to become a common mission for Tabucchi protagonists. Whether these characters succeed in the attempt is uncertain, but they are compelled to face their image as mirrored by others. A film was drawn from this book, too, in 1993 directed by the Portuguese Fernando Lopes
.
In 1987, when I volatili del Beato Angelico and Pessoana Minima were published, he received France's Prix Médicis for best foreign novel (Notturno indiano). The next year he wrote the comedy I dialoghi mancati. The President of Portugal
appointed him the title Do Infante Dom Henrique in 1989, and that same year the French government named him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Tabucchi published Un baule pieno di gente. Scritti su Fernando Pessoa (Feltrinelli) in 1990, and the next year, L'angelo nero (1991). In 1992 he wrote in Portuguese Requiem, a novel later translated into Italian (winner of Premio P.E.N. Club italiano) and he published Sogni di sogni.
In 1994 he released Gli ultimi tre giorni di Fernando Pessoa, as well as the novel that brought him the most recognition: Sostiene Pereira
, winner of the Prizes Super Campiello, Scanno and Jean Monnet
for European Literature. The protagonist of this novel becomes the symbol of the defence of freedom for information for the political opponents of all anti-democratic regimes. In Italy, during the election campaign, the opposition against the controversial communication magnate Silvio Berlusconi
aggregated around this book. The director Roberto Faenza drew from it the eponymous film (1995) in which he cast Marcello Mastroianni
as Pereira and Daniel Auteuil
as Dr. Cardoso.
In 1997 Tabucchi wrote the novel La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro (The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro) based on the true story of a man whose headless corpse was found in a park. It was discovered that the man had been murdered in a police station of the Republican National Guard (GNR). The news story struck the writer's sensitiveness and imagination. The event's setting in Porto
also gave the author the opportunity to show his love for the city. In order to finish this novel, Tabucchi worked on the documents gathered by the investigators at the Council of Europe
in Strasbourg
who enforce civil rights and the conditions of detention in Europe, including the relationship between citizens and police. The novel proved prophetic when police Sergeant José dos Santos later confessed the murder, was convicted and sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment.
Also in 1997, Tabucchi wrote Marconi, se ben mi ricordo, followed the next year by L'Automobile, la Nostalgie et l'Infini (1998). That year the Leibniz Academy awarded him the Prize Nossack.
He wrote Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento and Ena poukamiso gemato likedes (Una camicia piena di macchie. Conversazioni di A.T. con Anteos Chrysostomidis) in 1999.
In 2001 Tabucchi published the epistolary novel, Si sta facendo sempre più tardi. In it, 17 letters which celebrate the triumph of the word, which like "messages in the bottle", have no addressee, they are missives the author addressed to an "unknown poste restante". The book received the 2002 Prize France Culture
(the French cultural radio) for foreign literature.
He spends six months of the year in Lisbon
, with his wife, a native of the city, and their two children. The rest of the year he spends in Tuscany
where he teaches Portuguese literature at the University of Siena
. In fact Tabucchi considers himself a writer only in an ontological sense, because from the existential point of view he is glad of being able to define himself a "university professor". Literature
for Tabucchi is not a profession, "but something that involves desires, dreams and imagination".
Tabucchi regularly contributes articles to the cultural pages of the newspapers Corriere della Sera
and El País. In 2004, he was awarded the Francisco de Cerecedo journalism prize, granted by the Association of European Journalists and handed by Spain's Crown heir, Prince Felipe de Borbón, in recognition for the quality of his journalistic work and his outspoken defence of freedom of expression.
In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège
.
University of Siena
The University of Siena in Siena, Tuscany is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called Studium Senese, the University of Siena was founded in 1240. The University has around 20,000 students, nearly half of Siena's total population of around 54,000...
, Italy.
Deeply in love with Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, he is an expert, critic and translator of the works of the writer Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
from whom he drew the conceptions of saudade
Saudade
Saudade ) is a unique Galician-Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. Saudade describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return...
, of fiction and of the heteronym
Heteronym (literature)
The literary concept of heteronym, invented by Portuguese writer and poet Fernando Pessoa, refers to one or more imaginary character created by a writer to write in different styles...
s. Tabucchi was first introduced to Pessoa's works in the 1960s when attending the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. He was so charmed that, back in Italy, he attended a course of Portuguese language
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
for a better comprehension of the poet.
His books and essays have been translated in 18 countries, including Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Together with his wife, María José de Lancastre, he translated many works by Pessoa into Italian and has written a book of essays and a comedy about the writer.
Tabucchi has been awarded the French prize "Médicis étranger" for Nocturne indien (Notturno indiano) and the premio Campiello
Premio Campiello
The Premio Campiello is an annual Italian literary prize.A Jury of Literary Experts identifies books published during the year and, in a public hearing, selects five of those as finalists. These books are called il Premio Selezione Campiello...
, and the Aristeion Prize
Aristeion Prize
The Aristeion Prize is a European prize, awarded for significant contributions to contemporary literature, and exceptional translations of contemporary literature. The prize is awarded in a different Capital of Culture each year...
for Sostiene Pereira.
Early life
Antonio Tabucchi was born in PisaPisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
but grew up at his maternal grandparents' home in Vecchiano
Vecchiano
Vecchiano is a comune in the Province of Pisa in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 70 km west of Florence and about 8 km north of Pisa...
, a nearby village.
During his years at university, he travelled widely around Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
on the trail of the authors he had encountered in his uncle's library. During one of these journeys, he found the poem "Tabacaria" (tobacco shop) in a bookstall near the Gare de Lyon
Paris-Gare de Lyon
Paris Lyon is one of the six large railway termini in Paris, France. It is the northern terminus of the Paris–Marseille railway. It is named after the city of Lyon, a stop for many long-distance trains departing here, most en route to the south of France. In general the station's SNCF services run...
in Paris, signed by Alvaro de Campos
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
, one of the heteronyms (a kind of poetical personality) of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
. It was in the French translation by Pierre Hourcade. From the pages of this libel he extracted the intuition of his interest in his future life for at least twenty years.
A visit to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
sparked his love of the city of the fado
Fado
Fado is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar, Rui Vieira Nery, states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best...
and of that country as a whole. As a result, he graduated in 1969 with a thesis on "Surrealism in Portugal". He specialized at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
The Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, also known in Italian as Scuola Normale , is a public higher learning institution in Italy. It was founded in 1810, by Napoleonic decree, as a branch of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris...
in the seventies and in 1973 he was appointed as teacher of Portuguese Language and Literature in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
.
That year he wrote his first novel, Piazza d'Italia (Bompiani 1975), in which he tried to describe history from the losers' point of view, in this case the Tuscan anarchists, in the tradition of great Italian writers of a more or less recent past, such as Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the novel I Malavoglia .-Life and career:The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro,...
, Federico De Roberto
Federico De Roberto
Federico De Roberto was an Italian writer, who became well known for his novel I Vicerè . He began his writing career as a journalist for national newspapers, where he met Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana, the most prominent writers of the Verismo style. Verga introduced him into the literary...
, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , was a Sicilian writer. He is most famous for his only novel, Il Gattopardo which is set in Sicily during the Risorgimento...
, Beppe Fenoglio
Beppe Fenoglio
Beppe Fenoglio was an Italian writer. His work was published in a critical edition after his death, but controversy remains about his book Il partigiano Johnny , often considered his best work, which was published posthumously in 1968.The works of...
, and contemporary authors, like Vincenzo Consolo
Vincenzo Consolo
Vincenzo Consolo is an Italian writer. He has lived in Milan since 1969. He debuted in 1963, but gained wider attention in 1976 with Il sorriso dell’ignoto marinaio and has since become an award-winning author.- References :...
.
More works
In 1978, he was appointed to the University of GenoaUniversity of Genoa
The University of Genoa is one of the largest universities in Italy.Located in Liguria on the Italian Riviera, the university was founded in 1471. It currently has about 40,000 students, 1,800 teaching and research staff and about 1,580 administrative staff.- Campus :The University of Genoa is...
, and published Il piccolo naviglio, followed by Il gioco del rovescio e altri racconti in 1981, and Donna di porto Pim (1983). His first important novel, Notturno indiano, was published in 1984, and became the basis of a 1989 a film directed by Alain Corneau
Alain Corneau
Alain Corneau was a French film director and writer.Corneau was born in Meung-sur-Loire, Loiret. Originally a musician, he worked with Costa-Gavras as an assistant, which was also his first opportunity to work with the actor Yves Montand, with whom he would collaborate three times later in his...
. The protagonist tries to trace a friend who has disappeared in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
but is actually searching for his own identity.
He published Piccoli equivoci senza importanza in 1985 and, the next year, Il filo dell'orizzonte. This novel features another protagonist (Spino) on a quest to discover something (here, the identity of a corpse) but who is also looking for his own identity—which was to become a common mission for Tabucchi protagonists. Whether these characters succeed in the attempt is uncertain, but they are compelled to face their image as mirrored by others. A film was drawn from this book, too, in 1993 directed by the Portuguese Fernando Lopes
Fernando Lopes (filmmaker)
Fernando Lopes, GCIH is a Portuguese film director.-Filmography:*98 Octanas *Lá Fora *Delfim, O aka Dauphin, Le *Cinema *Gérard, Fotógrafo *Fio do Horizonte, O...
.
In 1987, when I volatili del Beato Angelico and Pessoana Minima were published, he received France's Prix Médicis for best foreign novel (Notturno indiano). The next year he wrote the comedy I dialoghi mancati. The President of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
appointed him the title Do Infante Dom Henrique in 1989, and that same year the French government named him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Tabucchi published Un baule pieno di gente. Scritti su Fernando Pessoa (Feltrinelli) in 1990, and the next year, L'angelo nero (1991). In 1992 he wrote in Portuguese Requiem, a novel later translated into Italian (winner of Premio P.E.N. Club italiano) and he published Sogni di sogni.
In 1994 he released Gli ultimi tre giorni di Fernando Pessoa, as well as the novel that brought him the most recognition: Sostiene Pereira
Sostiene Pereira (novel)
Sostiene Pereira is a novel written by Antonio Tabucchi in 1994. It follows Pereira, a journalist for the culture column of a small Lisbon newspaper, as he struggles with his conscience and the restrictions of the fascist regime of Antonio Salazar...
, winner of the Prizes Super Campiello, Scanno and Jean Monnet
Jean Monnet
Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet was a French political economist and diplomat. He is regarded by many as a chief architect of European Unity and is regarded as one of its founding fathers...
for European Literature. The protagonist of this novel becomes the symbol of the defence of freedom for information for the political opponents of all anti-democratic regimes. In Italy, during the election campaign, the opposition against the controversial communication magnate Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
aggregated around this book. The director Roberto Faenza drew from it the eponymous film (1995) in which he cast Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...
as Pereira and Daniel Auteuil
Daniel Auteuil
Daniel Auteuil is a French film, television and theatre actor.-Early life and education:He was born in Algiers, French Algeria.-Career:...
as Dr. Cardoso.
In 1997 Tabucchi wrote the novel La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro (The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro) based on the true story of a man whose headless corpse was found in a park. It was discovered that the man had been murdered in a police station of the Republican National Guard (GNR). The news story struck the writer's sensitiveness and imagination. The event's setting in Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
also gave the author the opportunity to show his love for the city. In order to finish this novel, Tabucchi worked on the documents gathered by the investigators at the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
who enforce civil rights and the conditions of detention in Europe, including the relationship between citizens and police. The novel proved prophetic when police Sergeant José dos Santos later confessed the murder, was convicted and sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment.
Also in 1997, Tabucchi wrote Marconi, se ben mi ricordo, followed the next year by L'Automobile, la Nostalgie et l'Infini (1998). That year the Leibniz Academy awarded him the Prize Nossack.
He wrote Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento and Ena poukamiso gemato likedes (Una camicia piena di macchie. Conversazioni di A.T. con Anteos Chrysostomidis) in 1999.
In 2001 Tabucchi published the epistolary novel, Si sta facendo sempre più tardi. In it, 17 letters which celebrate the triumph of the word, which like "messages in the bottle", have no addressee, they are missives the author addressed to an "unknown poste restante". The book received the 2002 Prize France Culture
France Culture
France Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France. Its programming encompasses a wide variety of features on historical, philosophical, sociopolitical, and scientific themes , as well as literary readings, radio plays, and experimental productions...
(the French cultural radio) for foreign literature.
He spends six months of the year in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, with his wife, a native of the city, and their two children. The rest of the year he spends in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
where he teaches Portuguese literature at the University of Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
. In fact Tabucchi considers himself a writer only in an ontological sense, because from the existential point of view he is glad of being able to define himself a "university professor". Literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
for Tabucchi is not a profession, "but something that involves desires, dreams and imagination".
Tabucchi regularly contributes articles to the cultural pages of the newspapers Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
and El País. In 2004, he was awarded the Francisco de Cerecedo journalism prize, granted by the Association of European Journalists and handed by Spain's Crown heir, Prince Felipe de Borbón, in recognition for the quality of his journalistic work and his outspoken defence of freedom of expression.
In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège
University of Liège
The University of Liège , in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium, is a major public university in the French Community of Belgium. Its official language is French.-History:...
.
Works
- Piazza d'Italia (1975), ISBN 88-07-01458-0
- Il piccolo naviglio (1978)
- Il gioco del rovescio e altri racconti (1981, short story collection), ISBN 88-07-01354-1
- Donna di Porto Pim (1983)
- Notturno indiano (1984)
- Piccoli equivoci senza importanza (1985, short story collection), ISBN 88-07-01306-1
- Il filo dell'orizzonte (1986, short story collection), ISBN 88-07-01322-3
- I volatili del Beato Angelico (1987)
- Pessoana mínima (1987)
- I dialoghi mancati (1988), ISBN 88-07-05058-7
- Un baule pieno di gente. Scritti su Fernando Pessoa (1990, essays), ISBN 88-07-05080-3
- L'angelo nero (1991, short story collection), ISBN 88-07-01414-9
- Sogni di sogni (1992)
- Requiem (1992), ISBN 88-07-01433-5
- Gli ultimi tre giorni di Fernando Pessoa (1994), ISBN 88-389-1056-1
- Sostiene Pereira. Una testimonianza (1994), ISBN 88-07-01461-0
- Dove va il romanzo (1995, essay), ISBN 88-86680-00-7
- Carlos Gumpert, Conversaciones con Antonio Tabucchi (1995)
- La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro (1997), ISBN 88-07-01518-8
- Marconi, se ben mi ricordo (1997), ISBN 88-397-0978-9
- L'Automobile, la Nostalgie et l'Infini (1998)
- La gastrite di Platone (1998), ISBN 88-389-1421-4
- Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento (1999), ISBN 88-380-8010-0
- Ena poukamiso gemato likedes (Una camicia piena di macchie. Conversazioni di A.T. con Anteos Chrysostomidis, 1999)
- Dreams of Dreams and the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa (2000), ISBN 9780872863682
- Si sta facendo sempre più tardi. Romanzo in forma di lettere (2001), ISBN 88-07-01590-0
- Autobiografie altrui. Poetiche a posteriori (2003), ISBN 88-07-42098-8
- Tristano muore. Una vita (2004), ISBN 88-07-01646-X
- Il tempo invecchia in fretta (2009)