Gianni Celati is an Italian writer, translator and literary critic.
Biography
Gianni Celati was born in Sondrio, 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 are 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 with 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 starred in Mondonuovo by the director Davide Ferrario, a movie on Celati's childhood. He lives in Brighton.
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 English Adventures in Africa, translated by Adria Bernardi, foreword by Rebecca J. West. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000
