ABSTRACT
The Italian writer, composer, and artist Alberto Savinio (1891-1952)—whose real name was Andrea de Chirico—has long been overshadowed by his older brother, the metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico. Yet in Europe, interest in Savinio’s own artistic and literary accomplishments has never completely waned, and in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s there was even an impressive and unexpected revival. The Marlboro Press especially defended Savinio’s distinctive and provocative work by producing translations of Capri (written in 1926, fully published in Italian only in 1988), Operatic Lives, and Dico a te, Clio (Speaking to Clio, 1940). Eridanos Press chipped in with a version of an essential autobiographical novel set mostly in Greece (where Savinio was born and raised), Infanzia di Nivasio Dolcemare (The Childhood of Nivasio Dolcemare, 1941); and Atlas Press followed suit with a selection of Savinio’s short stories, characteristically parodying Greco-Roman myths and entitled The Lives of the Gods in English. The Marlboro Press then added to its excellent series of modern Italian literature by issuing John Shepley’s fine translation of Tragedia dell’infanzia (1937 / 1945), one of Savinio’s most intriguing books. It is a penetrating look at our cruel adult world through a child’s bewildered, ingenuous eyes.
