Luigi Malerba
{{Short description|Italian screenwriter}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Luigi Malerba
| image =
| imagesize =
| caption =
| birth_name = Luigi Bonardi
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1927|11|11}}
| birth_place = Berceto, Italy
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2008|5|8|1927|11|11}}
| death_place = Rome
| occupation = {{hlist|Novelist|short story writer|screenwriter|essayist}}
| awards = Prix Médicis étranger 1970, Viareggio Prize 1992
| period = 1950s–2000s
| genre = Historical novel
| movement = Neoavanguardia
| notableworks = The Serpent, What Is This Buzzing? Do You Hear It Too?
}}
Luigi Malerba (11 November 1927 – 8 May 2008), born Luigi Bonardi, was an Italian author known for his short stories, historical novels, and screenplays. He was a prominent figure in the Neoavanguardia movement and co-founded Gruppo 63, a literary collective influenced by Marxism and Structuralism.
Some of his most renowned works include La scoperta dell'alfabeto, The Serpent, What Is This Buzzing, Do You Hear It Too?, Dopo il pescecane, Testa d'argento, Il fuoco greco, Le pietre volanti, Roman Ghosts, and Ithaca Forever: Penelope Speaks. Malerba also wrote several stories and novels for children, collaborating on some of them with Tonino Guerra.
He was the first writer to win the Prix Médicis étranger in 1970. He received several prestigious awards, including the Brancati Prize in 1979, the {{ill|Mondello Prize|it}} in 1987, the Grinzane Cavour Prize in 1989 (alongside Stefano Jacomuzzi and Raffaele La Capria), the Viareggio Prize in 1992, the Flaiano Prize in 1990, and the {{ill|Feronia-Città di Fiano Prize|it}} in 1992. In 2000, his name appeared among the candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[http://www1.adnkronos.com/Archivio/AdnAgenzia/2000/09/30/Cultura/NOBEL-CI-SONO-ANCHE-UMBERTO-ECO-E-BOB-DYLAN-TRA-I-CANDIDATI_150300.php NOBEL: CI SONO ANCHE UMBERTO ECO E BOB DYLAN TRA I CANDIDATI].
The memory
An amusing writer, Malerba was a curious man—curious about language, history, customs, plots, and the coincidences of life. Unsurprisingly, he ventured into novels, linguistic essays, screenplays for cinema and television, and children's literature. Ziliotto, Gandolfi e Allegra su Testa d'argento, 1988, Oggi, Il racconto, 1990.
Umberto Eco said about him: "Many have associated Malerba with post-modern authors, but this classification is inaccurate. The author of What Is This Buzzing, Do You Hear It Too? always behaves in a maliciously ironic way, employing subterfuges and ambiguities"."[http://parma.repubblica.it/dettaglio/luigi-malerba-visto-da-eco-la-geniale-arte-della-menzogna/1742818 Luigi Malerba visto da Eco. La geniale arte della menzogna] La Repubblica, October 8, 2009. (in Italian) He was one of the most important exponents of the Italian literary movement called Neoavanguardia, along with Balestrini, Sanguineti, and Manganelli.
Paolo Mauri wrote about him: "Malerba operated within the Neoavanguardia: he liked the idea of turning old narratives upside down and pursuing new, experimental solutions. With his novels The Serpent and What Is This Buzzing, Do You Hear It Too?, he began to play on the thread of paradox, where investigations lead to nothing, heroes are born from the writer's mind and made to live on the page only to reveal an unexpected trick and a new, absolutely original language. From novel to novel, he would then continue, constantly renewing his themes and style."[https://www.repubblica.it/2008/05/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/morto-malerba/morto-malerba/morto-malerba.html "È morto lo scrittore Luigi Malerba, maestro di realtà deformate", su La Repubblica, 8 maggio 2008].
Bibliography
= Stories and novels =
- La scoperta dell'alfabeto (1963)
- Il serpente (1966)
- Salto mortale (1968, winner of Prix Médicis)
- Il protagonista (1973)
- Mozziconi (1975)
- Storiette (1977)
- Il pataffio (1978)
- Le galline pensierose (1980)
- Diario di un sognatore (1981)
- Storiette tascabili (1984)
- Il pianeta azzurro (1986, winner of the winner of the Premio Mondello)
- I cani di Gerusalemme (1988, with Fabio Carpi)
- Testa d'argento (1988, winner of Grinzane Cavour Prize)
- Il fuoco greco (1990, set in the Byzantine Empire)
- Le pietre volanti (1992, winner of the Viareggio Prize and the Premio Feronia-Città di Fiano)
- Le maschere (1994)
- Itaca per sempre (1997)
- Pinocchio con gli stivali
- Città e dintorni (essays, 2001)
- Il circolo di Granada (2002)
- Fantasmi romani (2006)
Scenarios
- The Overcoat (1952)
- The Beach (1954)
- Women and Soldiers (1954)
- Catch As Catch Can (1967)
- The Girl and the General (1967)
- Dismissed on His Wedding Night (1968)
- Oh, Grandmother's Dead (1969)
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{Citation|last= Anderson|first= Helen Victoria|year=2010| title= Historical and detective fiction in Italy 1950-2006 : Calvino, Malerba and Mancinelli|publisher= D. Phil. University of Oxford}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0539377}}
{{Navboxes
|title=Awards received by Luigi Malerba
|list1=
{{Mondello Prize}}
{{Viareggio Prize}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malerba, Luigi}}
Category:Writers from the Province of Parma
Category:20th-century Italian novelists
Category:20th-century Italian male writers
Category:20th-century Italian screenwriters
Category:Italian male screenwriters
Category:Prix Médicis étranger winners