Gianni Rodari - Biography, Works

Writer and journalist, born in Omegna, Piedmont, N Italy. He wrote mainly children's books, and re-invented the traditional fairy-tale, showing its connection with everyday reality, as in Il libro delle filastrocche (1950), Le avventure di Cipollino (1951), Il libro degli errori (1964), Parole per giocare (1979), and Grammatica della fantasia (1973).

Gianni Rodari (October 23, 1920 - April 14, 1980) was an Italian writer and journalist, most famous for his books for children.

Biography

Rodari was born in Omegna, a small town in the province of Novara (Northern Italy). After three years at the seminary in Soveso, Rodari received his teacher's diploma at the age of seventeen and began to teach elementary classes in rural schools of the Varese district.

During World War II, Rodari had a deferrement from the army due to his ill health. Traumatized by the loss of his two best friends and his favorite brother Cesare's incarceration in a German concentration camp, Rodari joined the Italian Communist Party in 1944 and participated in the Italian resistance movement.

In 1948, as a journalist for the Communist periodical L'Unità, he began writing books for children. In 1951, Rodari published his first books, Il Libro delle Filastrocche and Il Romanzo di Cipollino.

Rodari spent the years 1966-1969 working intensively on collaborative projects with children. In 1970 Rodari was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children's literature, which gained him a wider, international reputation as the best modern children's writer in Italian.

Works

Il libro delle Filastrocche (“The book of children's poems”, 1951) Il Romanzo di Cipollino (“The Adventures of the Little Onion”, 1951) La freccia azzurra (“The Blue Arrow”, 1953) Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi (“Gelsomino in the Country of Liars, 1958) Filastrocche in cielo e in terra (“Nursery Rhymes in the Sky and on Earth”, 1960) Favole al telefono (“Fairy Tales Over the Phone”, 1962) Gip nel televisore (“Gip in the Television”, 1962) La torta in cielo (“The Cake in the Sky”, 1966) La Grammatica della Fantasia (“The Grammar of Fantasy”, 1974) C'era due volte il barone Lamberto ovvero I misteri dell’isola di San Giulio (Twice Upon a Time there was a Baron called Lamberto or The Mysteries of the Isle of San Giulio, 1978, ISBN 88-06-01578-8) Novelle scritte a macchina (“Stories written on a typewriter”)