Alessandro Baricco (Italian pronunciation:[ale's:androbaˈrik:o]; born 25 January 1958)[1] is an Italian writer, director and performer. His novels have been translated into a number of languages.
Baricco published essays on music criticism: Il genio in fuga (1988) on Gioachino Rossini, and L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin ("Hegel's Soul and the Cows of Wisconsin", 1992) on the relation between music and modernity. He subsequently worked as music critic for La Repubblica and La Stampa, and hosted talk shows on Rai Tre.
Baricco debuted as a novelist with Castelli di rabbia (translated as Lands of Glass) in 1991.
In 1993, he co-founded a creative writing school in Turin, naming it Scuola Holden after J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The Scuola Holden hosts a variety of courses on narrative techniques including screenwriting, journalism, novels and short stories.
In the following years, his fame grew throughout Europe, with his works topping the Italian and French best-seller lists. Larger recognition followed the adaptation of his theatrical monologue Novecento into the movie The Legend of 1900, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
He has also worked with the French band Air, releasing "City Reading", a mix of the band's music with Baricco's reading of his novel City.
La Sposa giovane, Feltrinelli 2015; The Young BrideISBN9781609453343, Europa Editions 2016
Abel, Feltrinelli 2023
Theatre
Totem, a literary and musical happening staged in various locations throughout Italy with varying structure and contents. Mostly it consisted of a two-night theatrical event in which Baricco himself, helped by director Gabriele Vacis, actor Eugenio Allegri and musician Daniele Sepe, would read and comment on bits of literature from all centuries and countries, accompanying them with music. In 2001 Rizzoli published the video of Totem recorded in Milan in 1997.
Davila Roa, staged only once by director Luca Ronconi. Reportedly a huge fiasco, it was never published in written form.
Omero, Iliade, Feltrinelli 2004; An Iliad, Vintage International 2004 ( ISBN978-0-307-27539-4 ) – a rewriting of Homer's Iliad consisting of 24 chapters, each telling a part of the story through the eyes and words of a prominent character in the poem. The theatrical event from which the book originated was staged only twice due to its logistic difficulties: it spanned over three nights during which the best contemporary Italian actors would impersonate one character each, eight per night.
Palamedes - the cancelled hero, 2016; a theatrical event about Palamedes translated from ancient Greek by Andrea Marcolongo and staged by Baricco himself and the Italian actress Valeria Solarino.
Cinema
Partita Spagnola, Audino Editore 2003 (screenplay never shot).
