ERRI DE LUCA

AUGUST 21

MASTERCLASS IMPACT

Biography

Born in Naples in 1950, Erri De Luca has written fiction, theater, translations, poetry.
At 18, he left Naples and began his political commitment to the extra-parliamentary left, which lasted up to 30 years. It ended in the autumn 1980 with the participation in the fight against the twenty thousand expulsions from FIAT Mirafiori in Turin.
Between '76 and '96 he carried out manual trades. Between 1983 and 1984 he volunteered in Tanzania in a program concerning the water service of some villages. During the war in the territories of the former Yugoslavia, in the 90s, he was a truck driver for humanitarian convoys. In the spring of 1999 he was in Belgrade, this time alone, during the NATO bombings, to be on the side of the target. The friendship with the poet Izet Sarajlic of Sarajevo, whom he met during the Bosnian war, and with Ante Zemljar poet and partisan commander of the anti-Nazi war dates back to this period.
His first novel, "Non ora, non qui", was published in Italy in 1989. His books have been translated into over 30 languages. Self-taught in English, French, Swahili, Russian, Yiddish and ancient Hebrew, he translated some parts of the Old Testament literally.
For cinema he wrote the short film "Di là dal vetro”, “Il Turno di Notte lo Fanno le Stelle” (awarded at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York 2013), the musical biography "La Musica Provata" and the documentary "Alberi che camminano". He translated into Neapolitan and wrote Cocteau's "La voix humaine" for the interpretation of Sophia Loren.
For theater he participate in “Attraverso” (Mario Brunello, Gabriele Mirabassi, Marco Paolini, Gianmaria Testa); “Quixote e gli invincibili” (Gabriele Mirabassi and Gianmaria Testa); “In nome della madre” (Sara Cianfriglia and Simone Gandolfo); “In viaggio con Aurora” (Aurora De Luca); “Quixotimists” (Gabriele Mirabassi and Gianmaria Testa); “Solo andata” with the Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino.
He loves mountaineering. His favorite mountains are the Dolomites. He lives in the Roman countryside where he has planted and continues to plant trees.