This is a course dedicated to works of fiction and poetry of the great masters of the 20th Century, as well as to the study of contemporary authors who, in the last twenty years, have produced works of considerable literary value and publishing success - Alessandro Baricco, Niccolò Ammanniti, Andrea De Carlo, Margareth Mazzantini, Carlo Lucarelli, Andrea Camilleri... We'll deal with the new themes and the new forms of Italian literature.
Iris Origo: a cosmopolitan intellectual in the heart of Tuscany
From New York to Florence, from London to the Val d’Orcia; between literature, art and civic duties, the life and works of a writer who loved England, America and Italy.
Brilliant writer and academic of Italian history, from a well-to-do, cultured family, Iris Origo (1902 – 1988), after her marriage to Count Antonio Origo and their purchase of a landed estate in the heart of Tuscany, accepted the challenge of confronting a culture and a reality completely different from her own. With enthusiasm and passion she succeeded in transforming La Foce from an arid, poverty-stricken land into a model, agrarian community.
The meeting between rural Tuscany and the sensitivity, culture and intelligence of Iris Origo left a rich legacy in terms of literature and the physical landscape itself; a legacy that is still highly visible and of universal value.
Essential Bibliography
Guerra in Val d’Orcia (War in the Val d’Orcia)
Immagini e ombre (Images and Shadows)
Il mercante di Prato (The Merchant of Prato)
Bernadino da Siena e il suo tempo (The World of San Bernardino)
