Wednesday 6 December, from 2.30pm

Italo Calvino and Anglophone Culture

on the occasion of the centenary of Italo Calvino's birth

An event organised by Pierpaolo Antonello (Cambridge), Guido Bonsaver (Oxford), Martin McLaughlin (Oxford)

Italo Calvino (1923-1985) had a very special relationship with Anglophone culture in all its manifestations, but particularly with literature in English. As a young man he wrote his university thesis on the works of Joseph Conrad; in the first half of his literary career his main stylistic models were Hemingway and R. L. Stevenson; in the 1970s and 80s he came to appreciate the complexity of Joyce’s works; and in the last years of his life he became an enthusiastic supporter of writers of English who were also his friends, such as Salman Rushdie and Gore Vidal. Calvino probably had a broader knowledge of ‘English’ literature than any other Italian writers of the twentieth century. He was also interested in music and amongst his friends was Adam Pollock, the English musical director who for thirty years was the Director of the Opera Festival at Batignano, an initiative enthusiastically supported by Calvino himself.

The event dedicated to ‘Calvino and Anglophone Culture’ reflects his profound knowledge of our culture. The speakers who will talk about the author and his cultural legacy in Britain, are professors of Italian literature who are based in or have studied in the UK or Ireland (Elio Baldi, Eleonora Lima, Olivia Santovetti, Beatrice Sica); translation specialists and translators of Calvino (Federico Federici, Martin McLaughlin); and other writers and critics who are experts on various aspects of Calvino’s works: Ian Thomson, biographer of Calvino’s friend Primo Levi, Marina Warner, novelist and expert on folk-tales, including Calvino’s Italian Folk-Tales, Adam Pollock, Director of the Opera Festival at Batignano. In addition, Olivia Santovetti will interview the critic Domenico Scarpa, who has published the monumental centenary volume Calvino fa la conchiglia (Calvino Makes his Shell, Milan, Hoepli, 2023)