Gianni Celati


Gianni Celati was an Italian writer, translator, and literary critic.

Biography

Gianni Celati was born in Sondrio, Italy, but spent his infancy and adolescence in the province of Ferrara. He graduated in English literature with a degree on James Joyce by the teacher Carlo Izzo of the University of Bologna, where he would later teach.
His first book, Comiche, was published in 1970 in the Giulio Einaudi's publishing company with an introduction by Italo Calvino, with whom he planned to found a literary magazine which never came to light. Another writer interested in the projects was Carlo Ginzburg. All the letters were preserved and published later by the magazine Riga, no. 14, which later dedicated the entire no. 28 to Celati.
His three novels Le avventure di Guizzardi, La banda dei sospiri, and Lunario del paradiso were later published together in Parlamenti buffi, with a leave-letter of the author to his own book, which marked his passage from Einaudi to the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's publishing company.
In 1985, he wrote the stories of Narratori delle pianure ; in 1987 Quattro novelle sulle apparenze; and in 1989 Verso la foce. The three books reveal a new direction in the author's style, more serious and visual after the amusing and explosive wordy manner of the previous ones.
In 1994, he wrote L'Orlando innamorato raccontato in prosa, derived from the Orlando in Love of Matteo Maria Boiardo. In 1998, he collected his notes from African travelling in Avventure in Africa. This book was awarded the Zerilli-Marimò Prize for Italian Fiction.
In 2000, Rebecca J. West dedicated her Gianni Celati: The Craft of Everyday Storytelling to his writings.
Other stories by Celati were collected in Cinema naturale. In 2005, he published the pseudo-anthropological study Fata Morgana. In 2006, he won the Viareggio Prize for his novel Vite di pascolanti and made the third James K. Binder Lectureship in Literature at the University of California in San Diego on "Fellini on the Italian Male".
Celati has translated works by Jonathan Swift, William Gerhardie, Herman Melville, Stendhal, Louis Ferdinand Céline, Mark Twain, Roland Barthes, Jack London, Henri Michaux, Georges Perec, and others.
He also directed a few documentaries, such as Strada Provinciale delle Anime, Il Mondo di Luigi Ghirri, Case Sparse, and Diol Kadd ; while he starred in Mondonuovo by the director Davide Ferrario, a movie on Celati's childhood.
Celati died in Brighton, England on 3 January 2022, at the age of 84.

Works

Comiche, Einaudi, Turin, 1971 Le avventure del Guizzardi, Einaudi, 1972; Feltrinelli, Milan, 1989; 1994 La banda dei sospiri, Einaudi, 1976; Feltrinelli, 1989; 1998 Finzioni occidentali, Einaudi 1975; 1986; 2001 Lunario del paradiso, Einaudi, 1978; Feltrinelli 1989; 1996 Alice disambientata, L'erba voglio, Milan, 1978; Le lettere, Rome, 2007 Narratori delle pianure, Feltrinelli, 1985; 1988; translated by Robert Lumley, Voices from the plains, Serpent's Tail, London, 1989 Quattro novelle sulle apparenze, Feltrinelli, 1987; 1996; translated by Stuart Hood as Appearances, Serpent's Tail, 1991 La farsa dei tre clandestini. Un adattamento dai Marx Brothers, Baskerville, Bologna, 1987 Verso la foce, Feltrinelli 1988; 1992 Parlamenti buffi, Feltrinelli, 1989 L'Orlando innamorato raccontato in prosa, Einaudi, 1994 Recita dell'attore Attilio Vecchiatto al teatro di Rio Saliceto, Feltrinelli, 1996 Avventure in Africa, Feltrinelli 1998; Cinema naturale, Feltrinelli 2001; 2003 Fata Morgana, Feltrinelli, 2005 Vite di pascolanti, Nottetempo, Rome, 2006 Costumi degli italiani: 1. Un eroe moderno, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2008 Costumi degli italiani: 2. Il benessere arriva in casa Pucci, Quodlibet 2008 Sonetti del Badalucco nell'Italia odierna, Feltrinelli, 2010 Cinema all'aperto, Fandango Libri, 2011 Conversazioni del vento volatore, Quodlibet 2011 Passar la vita a Diol Kadd. Diari 2003-2006, Feltrinelli 2011 Selve d'amore, Quodlibet 2013
Translations in EnglishAdventures in Africa, translated by Adria Bernardi, foreword by Rebecca J. West. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000