Tommaso Pincio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tommaso Pincio, pseudonym of an Italian author of four novels, including Love-shaped story, the only one translated in English so far.
Contents |
[edit] Pseudonym
"Tommaso Pincio" is obviously an Italian rendering of Thomas Pynchon's name but this is not the sole reference for the pseudonym. "Pincio" is a hill in the center of Rome whose name comes from one of the families that occupied it in the 4th century AD, the Pincii. During the Renaissance period, "Pincio" was also a vulgar term for penis. Subsequently, the word took on the meaning of "a nobody people". Nowadays, it has almost disappeared from the common Italian language. Considering that "Tommaso" may denote a double identity (the Greek translation of the name means "twin"), it has been hypothesized that the pseudonym "Tommaso Pincio" is to be read "double of a nobody people"; the author has never confirmed the explation, though. He claimed that he chose "Tommaso Pincio" as pseudonym just because it comes from his fiction. In fact, Tommaso Pincio is a minor character of his first novel.
[edit] Biography
Even if he is not as extremely reclusive as his American namesake, very few things are known about Tommaso Pincio as a person. He was born in Rome sometime in the mid 1960’s and graduated in Visual Arts. Apparently, he wanted to become a painter but dropped that ambition quite soon. During the 1980’s he was an assistant of various artists and while also working as a cartoonist. In 1991, he moved to New York where he lived for some years. Going back to Italy, he became the director of a very well-known and respected contemporary art gallery. He likely started to think about writing novels during his stay in the United States, getting in touch with the works of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip K. Dick who influenced him very strongly. His first novel, M., was published in 1999.
At present, Tommaso Pincio is based in Rome and Bangkok and works as columnist for the Italian communist newspaper il manifesto and the Italian edition of Rolling Stone.
[edit] Bibliography in English
- Love-shaped Story, translated by Jonathan Hunt, London (UK): HarperCollins 2004
[edit] Bibliography in Italian
- Gli Alieni: come e perché sono giunti fra noi (Gli Alieni: come e perché sono giunti fra noi), historical essay, Rome: Fazi Editore 2006
- La ragazza che non era lei (La ragazza che non era lei), novel, Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore 2005
- Un amore dell'altro mondo (Love-shaped Story), novel, Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore 2002
- Lo spazio sfinito (Lo spazio sfinito), novel, Rome: Fanucci Editore, 2000
- M. (M.), novel, Naples: Cronopio Editore, 1999
