Bøker av Gianluca Rizzo

Literary Nonfiction. Essays in English and Italian, on the fiftieth anniversary since the foundation of Gruppo 63.On October 17th 2013, a group of young scholars and writers gathered in Los Angeles to commemorate another meeting (a much more fateful one) that had taken place in Palermo fifty years earlier, on October 3rd 1963 to be exact, at the Hotel Zagarella and the Sala Scarlatti of the Conservatorio. Back then, the main attraction had been the Festival Internazionale della Musica Nuova, a long-established music festival that had brought to Sicily some of the most interesting experiments from all over the world. An investigation on the latest developments in contemporary literature, the organizers thought, would have made a nice addition to the events already planned: it was the beginning of the 'avant-garde by wagon-lit, ' as Umberto Eco famously (and humorously) dubbed it. Fifty years later, and over ten thousand miles away, that same avant-garde is still inspiring a lively discussion, the end of the line being nowhere in sight.

Poetry on Stage focuses on exchanges between the writers of the Italian neo-avant-garde with the actors, directors, and playwrights of the Nuovo Teatro. The book sheds light on a forgotten chapter of twentieth-century Italian literature, arguing that the theatre was the ideal incubator for stylistic and linguistic experiments and a means through which authors could establish direct contact with their audience and verify solutions to the practical and theoretical problems raised by their stances in politics and poetics. A robust analysis of a number of exemplary texts grounds these issues in the plays and poems produced at the time and connects them with the experimentations subsequently carried out by some of the same artists. In-depth interviews with four of the most influential figures in the field - critic Valentina Valentini, actor and director Pippo Di Marca, author Giuliano Scabia, and the late poet Nanni Balestrini - conclude the volume, providing invaluable first-hand testimony that brings to life the people and controversies discussed.