Queer Places:
Via Emanuele Gianturco, 4, 00196 Roma RM
Nino Alberto Arbasino (22 January 1930 – 22 March 2020) was an Italian writer, essayist, and politician.
Among the protagonists of Group 63, his literary production has ranged from novels (Fratelli d'Italia of 1963, rewritten in 1976 and 1993) to essay (for example Un Paese senza, 1980). He considered himself an expressionist writer, and he considered Super Elagabalus his most surrealist and also his most expressionist book: "Especially for the descriptions of the places, which are always dreamlike and delusional".[1]
Nino Alberto Arbasino was born in Voghera, southwestern Lombardy. He studied at the University of Milan where he graduated in law. Later he worked as journalist for magazines such as Il Mondo and the newspaper La Repubblica. From 1983 to 1987, he was deputy in the Italian Parliament for the Italian Republican Party.
His work includes novels and essays. Arbasino was a member of the Gruppo 63.
He described himself as an expressionist writer and considered his novel Super Eliogabalo ("Super Elagabalus", 1969) as his most surreal and most expressionist book.[2] He edited and rewrote his various works, which were reprinted in updated versions.[3]
In the 1970s he was the host of the TV debate show Match. In December 1977 it hosted a famous debate between directors Mario Monicelli and (the emerging) Nanni Moretti. Moretti said that Monicelli's An Average Little Man was a reactionary film.[4][5]
Cover design by Stefano
In June 1996 Alberto Arbasino donated to the "Alessandro Bonsanti" contemporary archive kept in the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence the notes received at the end of the 1960s from
Harold Acton, containing a lively description of the group of English-Florentines then used by the Lombard writer for the drafts of the Due orfanelle, which would be printed in 1968.
Although declared homosexual, in 2000, during the days of World Pride, he harshly criticized those demonstrations, going as far as to define them as "the pride of the butt".
In 2004 he won the Premio Chiara for his career.
Arbasino lived alone in a house in via Gianturco, with his boyfriend Stefano (but both would have abhorred the word) occasionally passing through Milan. "L'amico Stefano", as he was called: made official and cited and gradually introduced into social life from the 1980s to 1990s in Rome, although it certainly circulated earlier. Stefano remained close to Arbasino until 2018, when he
died, despite the fact that he was much younger than Alberto.
It seems that Alberto had met Stefano for the first time at home, among the students and sailors. Someone claims that he was just a sailor.
Alberto and Stefano presented themselves practically identical, gray trousers, white or blue shirt, regimental tie or Hermès patterned tie, blue blazer. Same soft r, same humour.
Arbasino died on 22 March 2020, at the age of 90, after a long illness.[6]
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
