Biagio Chiara (1880 – December 27, 1918) was a poet, translator and literary critic Italian. Biagio Chiara was the first writer to introduce Oscar Wilde’s work to Italian readers – among his translations were The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lady Windermere’s Fan and the fairy tales in A House of Pomegranates – and his own work, especially the gay-themed stories in L’umano convito (1903), was itself influenced by Wilde.
Chiara lived in Turin, where he did not complete his studies in literature, and moved to Milan, Palermo and Rome to settle in Naples in 1906. He was editor of the review The Round Table and symbolist poet (according to Achille Macchia, decadentist according to Ungaretti ), neglected at home but appreciated by French critics; he was linked to the Ferdinando Bideri Publishing House. He was the first to introduce in Italy some works by Oscar Wilde (of whom he was a friend): The Picture of Dorian Gray, The House of Judgment, A House of Pomegranates, Lady Windermere's Fan, The Priest and the Acolyte and the Aphorisms (these still published by Newton Compton in the revised edition by Riccardo Reim, although the surname is incorrectly indicated as Chiaria in more recent reprints). He also translated Baudelaire (Aesthetic curiosities, Artificial paradises) and Jean Racine (Phaedra); he also produced versions from the Russian and the German considered valuable.
My published books:
