Author: Ian Thomson Publisher: Macmillan + ORM ISBN: 1466866063 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 934
Book Description
Primo Levi, author of Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, wrote books that have been called the essential works of humankind. Yet he lived an unremarkable existence, remaining until his death in the house in which he'd been born; managing a paint and varnish factory for thirty years; and tending his invalid mother to the last. Now, in a matchless account, Ian Thomson unravels the strands of a life as improbable as it was influential, the story of the most modest of men who became a universal touchstone of conscience and humanism. Drawing on exclusive access to family members and previously unseen correspondence, Thomson reconstructs the world of Levi's youth--the rhythms of Jewish life in Turin during the Mussolini years--as well as his experience in Auschwitz and difficult reintegration into postwar Italy. Thomson presents Levi in all his facets: his fondness for Louis Armstrong and fast cars, his insomnia and many near-catastrophic work accidents. Finally, he explores the controversy and isolation of Levi's later years, along with the increasing tensions in his life--between his private anguish and gift for friendship; his severe bouts of depression and passion for life and ideas; his pervasive dread and reasoned, pragmatic ethic. Praised in Britain as "the best sort of history" and "a model of its kind," Primo Levi: A Life is certain to take its place as the standard biography and a necessary companion to the works themselves.
Author: Stefano Olivari Publisher: OlliService Multimedia ISBN: 889929805X Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 405
Book Description
Milan, known worldwide as the economic and fashion capital of Italy, is one of the most advanced cities in the world which, in its completely urbanized area of almost 181.76km², includes also wonderful shops and a great social life, besides, of course, art, a university culture, excellent food and traditions recognizable in everyday life and in daily habits; for example, the rediscovery of the small markets as a place to meet and have a chat, or going for a walk with the family in the streets of the centre. It is not at all easy to determine what is in the name “Milan”: first of all, it refers to a municipality with about 1,300,000 inhabitants, but also to an urban area with about 3,900,000 inhabitants also known as the “Greater Milan” and finally, to a metropolitan area of 7,400,000 inhabitants. Nevertheless, the city is identified by its symbols, and our intention is to introduce you to every aspect of the city of Milan through virtual photographs, texts and some curiosities. It is worth visiting Milan to learn the many realities that surround this city, from the entrepreneurial vocation to the connection with tradition: only by knowing the richness of the past can we confront the present. Enjoy your visit!
Author: Elisabetta Tarantino with the collaboration of Carlo Caruso Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1527557200 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 465
Book Description
This book deals with a topic that is gaining increasing critical attention, the literature of nonsense and absurdity. The volume gathers together twenty-one essays on various aspects of literary nonsense, according to criteria that are deliberately inclusive and eclectic. Its purpose is to offer a gallery of “nonsense practices” in literature across periods and countries, in the conviction that important critical insights can be gained from these juxtapositions. Most of the cases presented here deal with linguistic nonsense, but in a few instances the nonsense operates at the higher level of the interpretation of reality on the part of the subject—or of the impossibility thereof. The contributors to the volume are established and younger scholars from various countries. Chronologically, the chapters range widely from Dante to Václav Havel, and offer a large span of national literatures (Czech, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese) and literary genres (poetry, prose, and drama), inviting the readers to trace their own pathway and draw their own lines of connection. One point that emerges with particular force is the notion that what distinguishes literary nonsense is its somehow “regulated” nature. Literary nonsense thus sounds like a deliberate, last-ditch attempt to snatch order from the jaws of chaos—the speech of the “Fool” as opposed to the tale told by an idiot. It is this kind of post-Derridean retrieval of choice as the defining element in semantic transactions which is perhaps the most significant insight bequeathed by the study of nonsense to the analysis of poetry and literature in general.
Author: Emma Barron Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319909630 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
When Mona Lisa smiled enigmatically from the cover of the Italian magazine Epoca in 1957, she gazed out at more than three million readers. As Emma Barron argues, her appearance on the cover is emblematic of the distinctive ways that high culture was integrated into Italy’s mass culture boom in the 1950s and 1960s, a period when popular appropriations of literature, fine art and music became a part of the rapidly changing modern Italian identity. Popular magazines ran weekly illustrated adaptations of literary classics. Television brought opera from the opera house into the homes of millions. Readers wrote to intellectuals and artists such as Alberto Moravia, Thomas Mann and Salvatore Quasimodo by the thousands with questions about literature and self-education. Drawing upon new archival material on the demographics of television audiences and magazine readers, this book is an engaging account of how the Italian people took possession of high culture and transformed the modern Italian identity.
Author: Ellen Nerenberg Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 0253012422 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
A study of three high-profile Italian murder cases, how they were covered by the media, and what it all says about Italian culture. Looking at media coverage of three very prominent murder cases, Murder Made in Italy explores the cultural issues raised by the murders and how they reflect developments in Italian civil society over the past twenty years. Providing detailed descriptions of each murder, investigation, and court case, Ellen Nerenberg addresses the perception of lawlessness in Italy, the country’s geography of crime, and the generalized fear for public safety among the Italian population. Nerenberg examines the fictional and nonfictional representations of these crimes through the lenses of moral panic, media spectacle, true crime writing, and the abject body. The worldwide publicity given the recent case of Amanda Knox, the American student tried for murder in a Perugia court, once more drew attention to crime and punishment in Italy and is the subject of the epilogue. “A fantastic array of literary, cinematic, and oral narratives.” —Stefania Lucamante, Catholic University of America “Original, engaging, and thought-provoking . . . quite unlike any other existing book in Italian cultural and media studies.” —Ruth Glynn, University of Bristol
Author: Paola Giorgis Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1498560512 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 143
Book Description
How is Foreignness defined by language? Who has the power to define the ‘foreigner’ as such, on which grounds, from which positioning, for which purposes? And within such premises, which is the role of foreign languages in defining, or challenging, Foreignness? This book reflects on the concept of Foreignness from a special lens, that of foreign languages and Foreign Language Education. Advancing that the experience of foreignness that foreign languages foreground opens up to a different apprehension of the self and the others, this work shows how such experience can problematize, question, and challenge meanings, assumptions, conceptualizations and representations ordinarily taken-for-granted, a much needed reflection at times when prevailing narratives essentialize individuals and groups according to their linguacultural backgrounds. Though with a global perspective, the book also addresses the Italian context in particular: after introducing a brief historical background, it examines how ‘foreignness’ is addressed, portrayed, or questioned in contemporary socio-cultural and political debates, and presents practical activities to show how the foreign language can be used for intercultural purposes. An original interdisciplinary approach, combining Critical Linguistics, Foreign Language Education, Intercultural Studies, and Critical Pedagogies, together with works of literature and examples from several fields, integrates theoretical references, practices and research methodologies to take the reader within the complex and fascinating world of languages, displaying how they inform individual and collective identities and representations, and how they can both serve processes of manipulation and domination, as well as those of empowerment and emancipation. For its interdisciplinary and integrated approach, this book aims to address teachers, educators, scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students, but also those readers who are curious to know more about languages, and about how they shape our identities, our meanings and our lives.
Author: Anna Lawton Publisher: New Acdemia+ORM ISBN: 1955835012 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
“Characters spanning three generations act out their lives against the background of historical turning points . . . reminds me of Downton Abbey!” —Willee Lewis, Vice President, PEN/Faulkner Foundation This enticing family saga unfolds on the background of Italian history. The rich narrative tapestry includes a castle in the Piedmont countryside near Turin, three women, three generations, and a multitude of minor characters. It brings to the fore individual lives and human predicaments, personal feelings and universal themes. The lives of the three main characters, apparently ordinary, but actually tragic in their inexorable decline, are placed in a coral context that includes: the castle dwellers and the villagers, industrial entrepreneurs and socialist agitators, stars of the silent screen and working girls, American officers in WWI, fascist thugs and victims of the regime, a rogue and an honest prostitute, a singer of the Neapolitan varieté, a Russian prince, a descendant of Sir Walton the pirate, a band of partisans, a liberal priest, and even a domestic leopard. The narrator, who is herself a character, claims an approximate knowledge of facts, which she gathered from personal memories, stories heard from various people, documents and letters, supplemented by the imagination where evidence is lacking. Most of all, it is the photos from the family album that stir her imagination. The use of various languages and dialects very effectively adds sound to the images. “An elaborate and far-reaching tale that makes for compelling reading. A family saga that boasts ambitious, sophisticated, and controlled storytelling.” —Kirkus Reviews “A beautiful story . . . a saga with its truth filtered through the fabric of narration.” —Camilla Baresani, author of Himalayan Pink Salt
Author: Ian Thomson
Author: Stefano Olivari
Author: Elisabetta Tarantino with the collaboration of Carlo Caruso
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Author: Emma Barron
Author: Ellen Nerenberg
Author: Paola Giorgis
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Author: Biblioteca Nacional (Brazil)
Author: Anna Lawton