Alda Merini

Alda Merini (March 21, 1931 – November 1, 2009) was a renowned Italian writer and poet. She was born and died in Milan.

Life

Alda Merini

Alda Merini was quite young when, as a poet, she gained the attention and the admiration of other Italian writers, such as Giorgio Manganelli, Salvatore Quasimodo and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Her writing style is described as intense, passionate and mystic, and it bears an influence from Rainer Maria Rilke.

Some of her poems concern her time in a mental home (1964 to the late 1970s) and are often of a long and dramatic nature. She explores the "otherness" of madness as part of creative expression. The poem "The other truth. Diary of a dropout" (L'altra verità. Diario di una diversa) is considered by some as her masterpiece, Scheiwiller, 1986.

In 2009 she received Italian Republic for Poetry.[1] In 1996 she was also nominated by the "Académie Francaise" as candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 2007 she won the Elsa Morante Ragazzi Award with ‘Alda e Io – Favole’ written in cooperation with the fable writer Sabatino Scia. Giorgio Napolitano then President of the Italian Republic described her, at here death, as an "inspired and limpid poetic voice."

References

  1. ↑ "E' morta la poetessa Alda Merini – cantò il dolore degli esclusi" (in Italian). La Repubblica. November 1, 2009. Retrieved November 1, 2009.

External links