Alessandro Baricco - Career, Works

Writer, born in Turin, Piedmont, NW Italy. His books present an enchanted atmoshphere, a feeling of vitality, and a wealth of detail. His works include Il genio in fuga (1988), Castelli di rabbia (1991), winner of the prestigious Prix Medicis and Campiello literary prizes, Oceano mare (1993) which was awarded the Viareggio prize, and Seta (1996), a widely acclaimed story of adventure and sexual enthralment.

Alessandro Baricco (b.

Career

After receiving a philosophy degree under Gianni Vattimo and a piano one at the Conservatory, he published essays of music criticism: Il genio in fuga, 1988), on Gioachino Rossini, and L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin ("Hegel's Soul and the Cows of Wisconsin", 1992), on the relation between music and modernity.

Baricco debuted as a novelist with Castelli di rabbia, in 1991.

In 1993 he co-founded in Turin a creative writing school named after J.D.Salinger's Holden Caulfield.

In the following years his fame has enormously grown throughout Europe, with his works always topping the Italian and French best-sellers lists. Larger recognition followed the adaptation of his lucky theatrical monologue Novecento into a movie directed by Oscar prize director Giuseppe Tornatore.

He has also worked with the French band Air; their only release together is City Reading, a mix of the French duo's music with Baricco's reading of his own work City.

In 2003 Baricco moved from Turin to Rome, where he currently lives with his wife (journalist Barbara Frandino) and their son Samuele.

Works

Novels

Castelli di rabbia (mentioning The Crystal Palace), Rizzoli 1991, Tascabili Bompiani 1994; Silk (1996) (see Silk (film) for the film adaptation) City (original title), Rizzoli 1999 Senza sangue, Rizzoli 2002; Mostly it consisted of a two-night theatrical event in which Baricco himself, helped by director Gabriele Vacis, actor Eugenio Allegri and musician Daniele Sepe, would read and comment chosen bits of literature from all centuries and countries, accompanying them with music. In 2001 Rizzoli published the video of aTotem recorded in Milan in the year 1997. The Legend of 1900 (1994) - originally a monologue for theater staged by director Gabriele Vacis, later adapted into a film by Giuseppe Tornatore: La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano in 1998 (with music composed by Ennio Morricone) Davila Roa, staged only once by director Luca Ronconi. Altre cronache del Grande Show, Feltrinelli 1998 Next. Piccolo libro sulla globalizzazione e il mondo che verrà, Feltrinelli 2002

Essays

Il genio in fuga. Sul teatro musicale di Rossini, Il Melangolo 1988, Einaudi 1997 L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin, Garzanti 1992