A conversation between Mario Barenghi and Ranjit Hoskote to commemorate the hundredth birth anniversary of one of the greatest-ever Italian authors, spend the morning travelling through the wonderful worlds Italo Calvino created as a novelist, short story-writer, essayist and critic.
This year marks the centenary of Italo Calvino’s birth; and a full 38 years have passed since his demise. Nevertheless, among the classics of the Italian twentieth century, he is a writer who more than others appears close to contemporary sensibilities. Mario Barenghi, literary critic, and Ranjit Hoskote, writer and essayist, discuss it.
This October, we celebrate the Week of the Italian Language in the World and as an homage to the great writer Italo Calvino, Istituto Italiano di Cultura Di Mumbai (IIC) will be commemorating his work with the Tata Literature Live at NCPA.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Mario Barenghi teaches contemporary Italian literature at the University of Milan Bicocca. He edited Calvino’s Essays for the Mondadori “Meridiani” and (with Claudio Milanini and Bruno Falcetto) the three volumes of Romanzi e racconti. He has also dedicated two monographs to Calvino published by Mulino.
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist, translator and curator based in Mumbai. He curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale as Everyone Agrees, It’s About to Explode (2011) and was co-curator of the 7th Gwangju Biennale. He has curated more than 50 exhibitions of Indian and global art since 1994.