As part of his world Never Ending Tour, Bob Dylan is in Italy but this time you get the chance to see the man as poet and not music star. Bob Dylan is appearing at the Parma poetry festival, ParmaPoesia, tonight for a small concert to the lucky few who will be there.

While Dylan is known for his fame in the 60’s and 70’s, and mostly as a musician, his long career is also famous for his writing. In fact his songs are very much in a literary, ballad style and with many albums behind him, he has also been a Nobel Prize nominee on more than one occasion.

The ParmaPoesia festival takes place today and tomorrow in various locations around the city of Parma, and includes many Italian writers such as Ennio Cavalli and Vittorino Andreoli. For more information, see the festivaldellapoesia website.

Continue reading: Bob Dylan in Italy for Never Ending Tour at Parma poetry festival

Dustin Hoffman speaks Italian in this video where he tries his hand at reciting a poem by famous Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi. The poem in question is described as Leopardi’s greatest work. Called “L’infinito”, it is about eternity and from the native Marche poet, works well as a tribute to the region.

The video above is a commercial to promote tourism in Italy’s beautiful Marche region, but it has been met with criticism from Italy’s intellectual elite due to Hoffman’s difficulties with the language. I actually think it works quite well, but perhaps not for an Italian public.

Imagine this in America and you’d have more than one Italo-American all of a sudden discovering their Italian roots and rushing back to the Marche. The region is Italy’s unsung beauty, and this commercial won’t do it any favours in keeping it a secret for the rest of us. I still give kudos to Hoffman for the effort, and think that of all American actors doing a publicity stunt, he is one of the few who would genuinely understand and appreciate the literary work at hand. See the poem in Italian after the jump, along with an English translation of “L’infinito”.

Continue reading: Dustin Hoffman "butchers" the Italian language: L'Infinito English translation

Among the many places to eat and historic restaurants of Milan is the restaurant Bagutta, in the San Babila area of Milan, not far from the Duomo. With so much fashion food, VIP restaurants and new fads in Milan, on going to this restaurant any adjectives like “funky” or “trendy” become superfluous. It’s difficult to translate in a few lines the history of a restaurant, but here we give you some idea of this historic Milanese restaurant.

The Bagutta was an “osteria” back in 1924, when you ate well and spent little. It became the favourite den of writers, poets and young talents from the world of art and literature, who didn’t spend much but shared plenty of ideas. It was frequented by journalists such as Orio Vergani and Paolo Monelli, writers like Riccardo Bachelli and artists such as Mario Vellani Marchi.

The “Baguttiano” dinner group discussed letters and literature between their courses. It was thus that the idea of Italy’s first literature prize, the “premio letterario Bagutta” or “Bagutta Prize”, was born in 1927; the idea came from Orio Vergani and became a source of pride for the restaurant and its owners, the Pepori family, over the years.

Continue reading: Historic restaurants in Milan: the Bagutta Trattoria

Actor and singer Massimo Ranieri will play Pier Paolo Pasolini in Federico Bruno’s new film Pasolini, la verità nascosta or Pasolini: The Hidden Truth. The movie centres on Pasolini’s last year of life (the writer was murdered in November 1975). This new biopic is partly based on a novel called Petrolio or Petrol which Pasolini left unfinished at his death (screenplay by Massimiliano Moccia)

Continue reading: Massimo Ranieri to play writer Pier Paolo Pasolini in biopic

Lezione 21 (Lesson) is the first movie directed by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco whose novels have been translated into a wide number of languages (Silk and Ocean Sea, two of his most successfully books hit bestseller lists around the world).

The movie starring John Hurt, Tim Barlow and Noah Taylor tells the story of an illustrious professor who gradually dismantles and then analyses Bethoven’s Ninth Simphony. For a review of the movie in Italian please click here

Continue reading: Lezione Ventuno, the first movie directed by writer Alessandro Baricco

In a tv interview granted to journalist Giovanni Minoli just a few months before her death, writer Marguerite Yourcenar publicly expressed her doubts about Umberto Eco’s talent as a writer; and now, twenty years after that somehow shocking interview, Alfonso Berardinelli, an eminent literary critic seems to agree with her point of view.

In the article he wrote for il Foglio, an important Italian newspaper, the critic goes even further and calls Eco’s books rubbish. Mr Berardinelli is famous for his controversial ideas about literature and politics and, if I am not wrong, in 1995 he resigned from his position as professor of Italian Literature at the University of Venice after firing off a whole broadside against certain intellectual quarters here in Italy.

A man certainly not afraid to express his opinions and this, in my opinion, is something we should all respect.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Eminent Literary critic pans Umberto Eco's books

One of Italy’s greatest and most famous writers of modern times, Oriana Fallaci, is famous for both her journalism work and her fiction writing. With works such as “Interview with History”, a collection of interviews of political figures, and fiction like “Letter to a Child Never Born”, she put her mark on the Italian literary scene.

Dying in 2006, she sent her last manuscript to her nephew, leaving instructions as to the title and its publication. “Un cappello pieno di ciliege”, or “A hat full of cherries” is being released post humously on July 30.

Fallaci has described the book as her “child”, though not without a difficult birth. It’s a family saga spanning the years 1773, to 1889, and the first copies are being printed with a genealogical tree and extracts from the original typed manuscript.

Continue reading: Italian writer Oriana Fallaci's latest book: "A hat full of cherries" published post-humously