Alda Merini
| Alda Merini | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
March 21, 1931 Milan, Italy |
| Died | November 1, 2009 (aged 78) Milan, Italy |
| Resting place | Monumental Cemetery of Milan |
| Occupation | writer, poet |
| Language | Italian |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Notable awards | Viareggio Prize, Premio Dessì |
| Years active | 1953–2008 |
Ho la sensazione di durare troppo, di non riuscire a spegnermi: come tutti i vecchi le mie radici stentano a mollare la terra. Ma del resto dico spesso a tutti che quella croce senza giustizia che è stato il mio manicomio non ha fatto che rivelarmi la grande potenza della vita. (English: I have the sensation of lasting too long, of being unable to extinguish myself: like all of my ancestors, my roots try to penetrate the earth. But of the rest I say often and to everyone that that merciless cross of my insanity did nothing except reveal to me the tremendous power of life.)
Alda Merini, La pazza della porta accanto
Alda Merini (Milan, 21 March 1931 – Milan, 1 November 2009) was an Italian writer and poet. 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. 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 her death, as an "inspired and limpid poetic voice."
Alda Giuseppina Angela Merini was born on March 21, 1931, in viale Papiniano 57, Milan in a family of modest means. The father, Nemo Merini, was an employee working at the insurance company "Vecchia Mutua Grandine ed Eguaglianza il Duomo". The mother, Emilia Painelli, was a housewife. Alda was the second daughter of three children, including Anna, born on November 26, 1926, and Ezio, born on January, 1943, who appear, albeit with a certain detachment, in her poems. Known about her childhood is only the little she wrote in the short autobiographical notes on the occasion of her second edition of the Spagnoletti Anthology: "a sensitive girl, with a rather melancholic character, quite excluded and little understood by her parents but very good at her classes in primary school ... because studying has always been a vital part of my life".
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