Francesco Benozzo
Francesco Benozzo was an Italian poet, musician and philologist. He worked as associate professor in philology at the University of Bologna, Italy, and was a visiting professor at the Bath Spa University, UK.
Benozzo was known for being an active dissident against the mass surveillance, with concrete protest actions that even led to his suspension from work for his rebellion against the power and in the name of freedom. His suspension from work due to his rebellion against the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic by the Italian Government was reported on Italian media, as he was one of the only two university professors suspended in Italy for this reason. He was the founder of the Observatory Against State Surveillance, sponsored by the European centre for Science, Ethics, and Law. Benozzo died on 22 March 2025, at the age of 56.
Biographical notes
''Poetry''
In Benozzo's conception, poetry is essentially an instrument of dissidence capable of debunking habitual perceptions of the world and restoring individual freedom to each human being. He is the author of long epic poems about natural landscapes and the origin of universe, which have been collected in 2023 in a bilingual edition titled Sciamanica. Poems from the Borders of the Worlds. Benozzo usually composed them orally and then performed them with his bardic harp. From 2015 onwards he was present in the List of nominees for the [Nobel Prize in Literature (2000–present)|List of nominees for the Nobel Prize in Literature], with nominations made public by the PEN International for his poetry in defence of natural places and Indigenous peoples, and for his peculiar use of poetic techniques belonging to the ancient tradition of oral poetry and shamanism. In 2016, on the official webpage of the Swedish Academy, he was consecrated by the international readers' jury as the most worthy author for the prize itself. In 2024 other international scientific academies have officially nominated him announcing this nomination on their official websites: among them, the "Partnership Studies Group" and the "Global Academy for Liberal Arts". In 2022 he was awarded the International Prize "Poets from the frontiers": the committee for the prize describes Benozzo’s poetry as follows: “Visionary, unsettling, epic, windy, Benozzo has the inimitable capacity to recapture the original word when it first named the world. . Poem after poem, unfailingly and amazingly this poet enacts a revolution of the very idea of poetry: with his atemporal and universal dimension, he is the Homer of post-modernity”.''Philology and linguistics''
In his book Speaking Australopithecus he argues for a much greater antiquity of human language than has usually been presumed in recent research, providing linguistic and archaeological evidence for seeing the appearance of human language with Australopithecus, between 4 and 3 million years ago. He is considered the creator of Ethnophilology, "a new approach and an indiscipline which still maintains the emotions of meeting with texts and words". He is the author of more than 800 publications, including academic works on oral poetry, Medieval literatures, Celtic traditions, dialectology, shamanism, anarchism, the Paleolithic continuity theory, and the problem of landscape in literature. Shortly before his death, he created the category of Homo poeta, intended as the archetype of our way of perceiving the world before we were able to speak.''Music''
As a songwriter and harpist, he released 17 CDs, produced in Italy, Denmark and UK, reaching an international wide appeal. He represented Italian poetry and music in different international happenings, including the Rich Text Literature Festival in Cardiff, the Tradicionarius Festival in Barcelona, the Stanza Poetry Festival in St. Andrews, the Festival Literario de Madeira, the Printemps des poètes, and the Summartonar Festival. He gave concerts in theatres and musical festival outside Europe, mainly in the USA, in Canada, and in Cuba. In 2003 he performed in Rome at the Teatro Valle together with the Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska.Main discography
In'tla piola Llyfr Taliesin Arpa celtica Terracqueo Libertà l'è morta Ponte del diavolo L'inverno necessario / The Necessary Winter Un Requiem Laico Ytiddo. BPB- Benozzo Performs Bowie Cronache da un naufragio Poeti della marea Song of the Remote Islands- ''Sylvatica. Errant Shamanic Songs''