Enrico Palandri, born in Venice in 1956, is an Italian writer, professor and translator. Biography: Son of an official, Palandri grew up around Rome, Trento and Venice, eventually graduating in Dramaturgy in the DAMS program of the University of Bologna. During the ‘Movimento del ’77, he gathered material alongside Maurizio Torrealta, Claudio Piersanti and Carlo Rovelli for a book on Radio Alice and the events of March 1977, entitled ‘Fatti Nostri’ (Our Facts). Within the same Bolognese environment, one finds his first novel, ‘Boccalone’, released in 1979 with the publishing house ‘L’erba voglio’ of Elvio Fachinelli. Finalist for the Viareggio Prize and republished numerous times in the proceeding years, ‘Boccalone’ is recognized as a symbol of the Italian literature of the late 1970’s, together with the works of Pier Vittorio Tondelli , Andrea De Carlo, among others. After studying with Elsa Morante in Rome, Palandri relocated to London in 1980, where he remained until his return to Venice in 2003. In 1986, he collaborated with Mario Bellocchio on the screenplay for the film ‘Il Diavolo in Corpo’ (The Devil in the Flesh). The same year saw Palandri also publish ‘Le pietre e il sale’ (The Rocks and the Salt), almost a decade after his first novel, with Garzanti. In 1990, he published ‘La via del ritorno’ (The Way Back) with Bompiani, which remained a collaborator, along with Feltrinelli, in the publication of most of Palandri’s subsequent novels. His latest work, I Fratelli Minori (The Younger Brothers), was published in 2011. In 2003, he also published with Bompiani, a collection of short stories, Allegro fantastico (Joyful and Fantastic). In addition to his creative writing, he is the author of four collections of critical essays: La deriva romantica, 2002 (The Romantic Drift), Pier (2005), Primo Levi (2011), and Flow (2011) His articles and curatorship of interviews with various other writers, such as Isaiah Berlin, Ernst Gombrich and Ian McEwan, encountered during his time in London have been featured in various journals, particularly ‘Panta’ and ‘Unità’. Palandri has won numerous literary awards (Fenice Europa, Dessi, Mastronardi) and his novels have often been translated into multiple languages. He currently teaches at the ‘Ca Foscari’ University in Venice as well as ‘UCL’ in London.
Omnipresent within the various novels of Palandri are historical events and subsequent social changes, including the aforementioned student movement of ’77, the fall of the Berlin Wall and other European cultural evolutions often influenced by the “global phenomenon of immigration” (Minardi and Francioso, 2011). From 2010-2011, Palandri and his oeuvre have been the subject of several books, including ‘’ (), a collection of essays realized by Enrico Minardi and Monica Francioso, and the monograph ‘Enrico Palandri’ by the same authors.
Bibliography: Boccalone: storia vera piena di bugie, Milan: L'erba voglio, 1979; n. ed. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1988; n. ed. Milan: Bompiani, 1997; ivi, 2011. Le pietre e il sale, Milan: Garzanti, 1986. Tradotto in English and Catalan. trad. Eudora Welty, Come mi sono scoperta scrittore, Milan: Leonardo, 1989 La via del ritorno, Milan: Bompiani, 1990; n. ed. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2001. Translated in German, English and French. Finalist for "France Culture" award for Best European Novel of the Year. Trans. George e Weedon Grossmith, Diario di un nessuno, Milan: Marcos y Marcos, 1991. Allegro fantastico, Milan: Bompiani, 1993. Finalist for the Pisa award. Le colpevoli ambiguità di Herbert Markus, Milan: Bompiani, 1997. Finalist for the Premio Stresa. Angela prende il volo, Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000, finalist Premio Fenice Europa, Premio Mastronardi, Premio Dessì. La deriva romantica: ipotesi sulla letteratura e sulla scrittura, Novara: Interlinea, 2002. L'altra sera, Milan: Feltrinelli, 2003. Finalista Premio Bancarella Sport. Translated in English, 2012. Italia fantastica, n. speciale di "Panta", a cura di Mario Fortunato e Enrico Palandri, Milan: Bompiani, 2004. Pier. Tondelli e la generazione, Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2005. Orfeo a teatro: canzone a tre voci per Orfeo, Euridice e un tecnico delle luci, Venice: Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 2007. I fratelli minori, Milan: Bompiani, 2010. Translated in English, 2012. Primo Levi, Florence: Le Monnier, 2011. Flow, Siena: Barbera, 2011.