From ancient Rome..
Strangely enough, few writers were born in the Eternal City, although many rallied to it, many wrote about it, and some even breathed their last here, and this seems to have been the case even in ancient times. Plautus, born in Sarsina in 254 BC, died in Rome seven decades later. He is rightly considered the first Latin writer and, although his early life is poorly documented, it is said that he moved to the capital to pursue a career in theater. Although he had to work at other trades to earn his keep, the plays he wrote are illustrious and had a considerable influence on future authors, including Molière. Twenty-one of the hundred or so comedies circulating in his name are attributed to him with certainty, and it's still fascinating to read, or reread, La Marmite, Amphitryon, Le Soldat fanfaron or Les Ménechmes.
In the following century, another man of the stage wrote a work that cannot be ignored, even if it consists of just six plays: Terence. Historians debate his Berber origins, but it's likely that he took his first steps in Rome as a slave, before winning his freedom through the grace of his beauty and intelligence. Many rumors circulated about him during his lifetime, and very little information has come down to us about the last years of his life. Yet his words are still with us, and it's a delight to discover L'Andrienne, L'Eunuque or Les Adelphes, and to recite one of his famous verses: "I am a man, I consider that nothing human is foreign to me".
The 1st century B.C. is studded with names that have remained in common memory. Cicero (106-43 B.C.), of course, renowned for the vigour of his speeches (he foiled Catilina's plot), for his Latin translations of Greek philosophers and for his works on rhetoric. A classic author in both style and morality, he also left an abundance of correspondence and a few poems to posterity, though they certainly didn't match the fame of those of his contemporary and, it seems, sworn enemy, Catullus. While Catullus enjoyed Roman life as an idle, wealthy man, his love affairs seemed to leave much to be desired, a fact he made no secret of either in his epigrams, some of which were erotic, or in his plays. Of the cenacle of "noui poetae" to which he belonged, only he is still celebrated, but this circle nevertheless made its mark through its appetite for novelty, whether stylistic or thematic. The alexandrines focus on personal passions, a far cry from the great myths Homer had once set in verse. A work that resonates with De Rerum natura by Lucretius, who died in Rome around 54 B.C. This long poem in six parts, the only legacy of this mysterious yet famously prolix author, is inspired by the philosophy of the Greek Epicurus, of whom we have even fewer traces. For fun, and although Rome was certainly not the city in which he stayed the longest, let's also mention Virgil, who witnessed the political upheavals of his time, referring to it in his Bucolics, before tackling the theme of agriculture in the Georgics. But it's his Aeneid that deserves pride of place in this brief survey of ancient literature, as it paints a fabulous portrait of the Italian capital. On his return from Greece, his friend Horace benefited from the support of Maecenas, to whom he dedicated his Satires, Epodes and Odes. Horace, who died in Rome a few years before the birth of Christ, had met his younger brother Ovid, who had also lived in Athens. Allowing himself to indulge his poetic vocation, Ovid gave his collection Les Amours to young readers. Success followed success, but according to his own words, L'Art d'aimer did not please Augustus, and earned him exile. His Metamorphoses remain a timeless classic to this day.
The first century AD saw the emergence of a writer whose true identity continues to provoke controversy, but in any case, Petronius' sulphurous Satyricon depicts a decadent Rome that's fun to discover in our own time, even if rumour has it that his mockery of the powers that be, particularly against Nero, cost him his life. This text, considered one of the first novels of world literature, is published in French by GF. Another major author is also said to have been driven to suicide for having rubbed shoulders a little too closely with politicians: Sénèque, whose tragedies Médée, Phèdre, Hercule furieux and Les Troyennes are just as famous as his dialogues(De la vie heureuse, De la colère, etc.). Finally, we leave it to the historians Tacitus(The Life of Agricola, The Histories) and Suetonius(Of Illustrious Men, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars) to conclude an era that was as rich in events as it was in literary works.
... to today
It takes a major leap of faith to discover an author born in Rome, and this one brings us to Carlo Alberto Salustri (1871-1950), better known by his pen name and anagram: Trilussa. Doubly in love with his city, he wrote his most beautiful verses in romanesco, the Roman dialect, and wrote biting political columns for the press, accurately describing the life of the city over several decades. Born into perfect poverty, he ended up a senator, and remained much loved by his compatriots. A square now bears his name and a statue of him adorns it. Trilussa was the contemporary of two Nobel Prize winners for literature, Grazia Deledda (1871-1936), whose Le Pays sous le vent was republished by Cambourakis in 2017, and Luigi Pirandello, author of Un, personne et cent mille, who died in Rome in 1936. An internationally-renowned playwright, his play Six personnages en quête d'auteur (Six Characters in Search of an Author) finely questions the troubled relationship between fiction and reality. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) succumbed to cancer even before a publisher accepted Le Guépard. The eponymous film, directed by Luchino Visconti and featuring a famous cast - Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster to name but a few - won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1963.
The twentieth century saw the birth of Alberto Pincherle, whose pseudonym, Alberto Moravia, is better known. Bone tuberculosis forced the young boy to leave the Roman skies for the sunshine of sanatoria, where he spent long periods of isolation, reading and writing. Was this the birthplace of his ambiguous relationship with sexuality and boredom, and of the feeling of being a stranger to the world and unable to live in it that informs his later novels? In any case, on his return to the capital, he frequented the avant-garde movement led by Massimo Bontempelli, inventor of magic realism and founder, with Curzio Malaparte, of the magazine Novecento in 1926. While each contributor undertook to submit a novel, the young Moravia's Les Indifférents was rejected by the selection committee. His father then advanced him the sum he needed to self-publish, and it was both a success and a scandal. This portrayal of a disillusioned bourgeoisie through the eyes of five characters living in an almost in camera setting, oscillating between dull passions and overt weariness, all served up by a surgical, sober and distanced style of writing, makes this first novel a masterpiece in the work of the author who, by his own admission, thought he had already said it all. However, it's also worth taking a look at his later works, such as La Désobéissance, L'Ennui and Le Mépris, made into a film by Jean-Luc Godard in 1963. Moravia was the husband of Elsa Morante (1912-1985), a Roman novelist who also gave in to her literary vocation in her teens, and who also defied public opinion with La Storia, published in 1974. This "Petite histoire", which paints an appalling portrait of the "Grande histoire", is available in paperback from Folio. Lovers of thick books can follow up with the autobiography begun by Dolores Prato (1892-1983) around the same time. In 2018, Editions Verdier published the entire 896-page text. Bas la place y'a personne is a literary monument that plunges the reader into a vanished world, rural Italy at the very end of the 19th century.
French publishers are keen on Italian translations, and it's not unusual to find contemporary authors on bookshop shelves. One example is Niccolò Ammaniti, born in Rome in 1966, who, in addition to his work as a film director, is also a writer. His first novel, Branchies (1994), made him one of the leaders of the "cannibal" movement, a new realism which, as its name suggests, does not shy away from a certain rock'n'roll provocation. His other books, such as Moi et toi and Je n'ai pas peur, are more easily found with Editions 10-18, and feature tales of childhood that are anything but tender. His youngest by a few years, Alessandro Piperno, is no less sharp-witted. Avec les pires intentions (With the worst intentions), published by Liana Levi, is not lacking in humor and targets a Roman family from the Jewish bourgeoisie. But it was with Persécution, the first part of a diptych that continues with Inséparables, that the author asserted his talent for mockery, certainly, but not only. More recently, Nicola Lagioia's La Ville des vivants (The City of the Living ) takes us on a journey through Rome, between splendor and decadence.
