Gianni Rodari (23 October 1920 - 14 April 1980) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
writer and journalist, most famous for his books for children. He won the
Hans Christian Andersen AwardThe Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes known as the "Little Nobel Prize", is an international award given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature"...
in 1970 and is considered by many to be Italy's most important twentieth-century children's author. His books have been translated into many languages, though few have been published in English.
Biography
Rodari was born in
OmegnaOmegna is a comune in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 100 km northeast of Turin and about 13 km southwest of Verbania.-History:...
, a small town on
Lake OrtaLake Orta is a lake in northern Italy west of Lago Maggiore.It has been so named since the 16th century, but was previously called the Lago di San Giulio, after Saint Julius , the patron saint of the region; Cusio is a merely poetical name...
in the
province of NovaraNovara is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Novara.It has an area of 1,339 km², and a total population of 365.156 . There are 88 communes in the province .-External links:*...
(Northern Italy). His father, a baker, died when Rodari was only ten. Rodari and his two brothers, Cesare and Mario, were raised by his mother in her native village, in the
province of VareseThe Province of Varese is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Varese....
. After three years at the seminary in
SevesoSeveso is an Italian town and comune of 19,872 inhabitants situated in the Province of Milan, in the Region of Lombardy...
, Rodari received his teacher's diploma at the age of seventeen and began to teach elementary classes in rural schools of the Varese district. He had interest in music (three years of
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
lessons) and literature (discovered the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Lenin and Trotsky which sharpened his critical sense). In 1939, for a short time, Rodari attended the
University of MilanThe University of Milan is one of the largest universities in Italy, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....
.
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Rodari had a deferrement from the army due to his ill health. Due to his precarious financial situation, he applied for a work at the Casa del Fascio and was forced to join the Fascist Party. Traumatized by the loss of his two best friends and his favorite brother Cesare's incarceration in a
GermanNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
concentration campNazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps were greatly expanded in Germany after the Reichstag fire in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, Rodari joined the
Italian Communist PartyThe Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party...
in 1944 and participated in the
Italian resistance movementThe Italian resistance movement was a partisan force during World War II.-Origins of the movement:After Italy's armistice on 8 September 1943, the Italian resistance movement became massive...
.
In 1948, as a journalist for the Communist periodical
L'Unitàl'Unità is an Italian left-wing newspaper, originally founded as official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party and today strictly linked to the Italian Democratic Party.-History:...
, he began writing books for children. In 1950 the Party installed him as editor of the new weekly children's magazine
Il Pioniere in Rome. In 1951, Rodari published his first books,
Il Libro delle Filastrocche and
Il Romanzo di Cipollino.
In 1952, he traveled to the USSR for the first time, which he frequented thereafter. In 1953, married Maria Teresa Feretti, who 4 years later gave birth to his daughter, Paola. In 1957 Rodari passed an exam as a professional journalist.
Rodari spent the years 1966-1969 working intensively on collaborative projects with children. In 1970 Rodari was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children's literature, which gained him a wider international reputation as the best modern children's writer in Italian. His works have been translated into numerous languages around the world.
In 1979, after another trip to the USSR, his health, never very robust, declined and his productivity diminished. He died in Rome, during a surgical operation, in 1980.
Works
He is perhaps best known for developing the story of
CipollinoCipollino is a fictional character from Gianni Rodari's eponymous Tale of Cipollino , also known under its 1957 renamed title Adventures of Cipollino , a children's tale about political oppression...
. The story of Cipollino was popular enough to have a ballet staged in Russia in 1973, composed by
Karen KhachaturianKaren Surenovich Khachaturian, nephew of Aram Khachaturian, was born in Moscow on 19 September 1920.His studies under Litinsky at Moscow Conservatory were interrupted by a term of duty in the entertainment division of the Red Army...
and choreographed by Genrik Alexandrovich Maiorov. Cipollino, or Little Onion, fights the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable townfolk by the fruit royalty (Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato) in the garden kingdom. The main theme is the "struggle of the underclass and the powerful, good versus evil" and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties.
- Il libro delle Filastrocche (“The book of children's poems”, 1951)
- Il Romanzo di Cipollino (“The Adventures of the Little Onion”, 1951)
- La freccia azzurra (“The Blue Arrow”, 1953)
- Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi (“Gelsomino in the Country of Liars, 1958)
- Filastrocche in cielo e in terra (“Nursery Rhymes in the Sky and on Earth”, 1960)
- Favole al telefono (“Fairy Tales Over the Phone”, 1962)
- Gip nel televisore (“Gip in the Television”, 1962)
- La torta in cielo (“The Cake in the Sky”, 1966)
- La Grammatica della Fantasia (“The Grammar of Fantasy”, 1974)
- C'era due volte il barone Lamberto ovvero I misteri dell’isola di San Giulio (Twice Upon a Time there was a Baron called Lamberto or The Mysteries of the Isle of San Giulio
San Giulio Island is an island within Lake Orta in Piedmont, northwestern Italy. The island is 275 meters long , and is 140 meters wide . The largest structure on the island is the Basilica of Saint Giulio...
, 1978, ISBN 88-06-01578-8)
- Novelle fatte a macchina (“Stories written on a typewriter”)
- La gondola fantasma
Further reading
- Argilli, Marcello, del Cornò, Lucio, and de Luca, Carmine (eds.), Le provocazioni della fantasia. Gianni Rodari scrittore e educatore (1993).
- Bini, G. (ed.), Leggere Rodari (1981).
- Boero, Pino, Una storia, tante storie: guida all'opera di Gianni Rodari (1992).
- Petrini, Enzo, Argilli, Marcello, and Bonardi, Carlo (eds.), Gianni Rodari (1981).
- Rodari, Gianni, The Grammar of Fantasy, trans. with intro. Jack Zipes (1996).
External links