Alessandro Baricco
b. 1958 · Italian novelist, playwright and music critic
Alessandro Baricco (born in Turin in 1958) is an Italian novelist, playwright and music critic, and one of the most widely read narrative voices in his country since the 1990s. Trained in philosophy and with a diploma in piano, he combined essays on music with journalism early on, which helps explain why his books move with a rhythm close to music and to the stage.
His first major essay, Il genio in fuga (1988), examined Rossini's musical theatre, and in 1992 he published Hegel's Soul and the Cows of Wisconsin, on the relationship between music and modernity. He worked as a music critic for Italian newspapers and hosted television talk shows. His novelistic debut came in 1991 with Lands of Glass, followed by Ocean Sea (1993) and Silk (1996), which brought him a broad European readership.
His prose is brief, rhythmic and clean, with a preference for characters caught between desire and fate and for stories that cross centuries and continents. He also writes for the theatre: the monologue Novecento became the basis of Giuseppe Tornatore's film The Legend of 1900. He experiments with hybrid forms, as in City, and with his chronicles of the great show.
His legacy extends beyond the page. In 1993 he co-founded the Scuola Holden in Turin, a writing school named after Salinger's Holden Caulfield, and in later essays such as The Barbarians (2006) he reflected on the cultural changes of the digital age. His influence is felt both among readers and among those trained in his school.
Key works
- Lands of Glass (Castelli di rabbia, 1991): the novel that marked his debut and won the Prix Médicis étranger.
- Ocean Sea (Oceano mare, 1993): a novel about a group of people gathered in a seaside hotel.
- Silk (Seda, 1996): the story of a silk merchant's journey to Japan, adapted for film in 2007.
- Novecento: A Monologue (1994): a stage monologue about a pianist born aboard a transatlantic liner, the source of Tornatore's film.
Works in Filopedia
- Silk 1996
Curiosities
A school with a literary name
In 1993 he co-founded the Scuola Holden in Turin, named after J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield. It offers courses on narrative techniques, screenwriting, journalism and the short story.
From monologue to the big screen
His stage monologue Novecento became the film The Legend of 1900, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, which greatly widened his recognition.
A record with the band Air
He worked with the French band Air on City Reading, a mix of the band's music with his own reading of his novel City.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.