Arbasiniana. All first edition books by Alberto Arbasino

Alberto Arbasino (Voghera, 22 January 1930 - Milan, 22 March 2020) was a writer, journalist and theatre critic. In 1955 he graduated in Law, after a brief period at the Faculty of Medicine in Pavia. He made his debut in fiction with a first short story published in the magazine Paragone, Destino d'estate, which would later flow into his first book Le piccole vacanze. At the same time, he began his collaboration with Il Mondo, with reportages from London and Paris. Soon, his work as a journalist became prominent through collaborations with literary magazines such as Il Verri, Il caffè, Il Ponte and newspapers such as Il Giorno, Corriere d'informazione, Repubblica, and Corriere della sera.
He has published about 40 books, including novels and short stories (from Le piccole vacanze, his debut in 1957, to the more recent Super-Eliogabalo, La bella di Lodi, Specchio delle mie brame), essays on literary and socio-political criticism (among others: Parigi o cara, Fratelli d'Italia and Sessanta posizioni), and travel reports (Trans-pacific express, Mekong, Passeggiando tra i draghi addormentati).

Arbasino also tried his hand at directing, making with Missiroli the film La bella di Lodi, which would later become one of his novels, and again with Missiroli the musical Amate sponde. Also as a director he made La Traviata, in 1965 in Cairo, and Carmen, at the municipal theatre in Bologna in 1967.

Everywhere in Europe there were exhibitions, concerts, theatre premieres, literary conventions Arbasino was present, ready to record not only the cultural aspects, but also the tics, the lapses in taste, the false starts, the entanglements, the foyer chatter. Always in the same light, yet elegant and refined style, whether novels, essays, theatre criticism or reportage. Always curious and cultured, he kept to the noble trail of the Lombard tradition from Manzoni to Dossi to his beloved Gadda, to whom he dedicated one of his last collections L'ingegnere in blu.

Arbasino was one of the main protagonists of Gruppo 63. In 2005 he was awarded the Chiara Prize for Lifetime Achievement. His original materials, manuscripts, press proofs, post-illustrated books, etc., are kept at the Centre for Studies on the Manuscript Tradition of Modern and Contemporary Authors at the University of Pavia.

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