Alda Merini

Alda Merini

Born	(1931-03-21)March 21, 1931 Milan, Italy
Died	November 1, 2009(2009-11-01) (aged 78) Milan, Italy
Resting place	Monumental Cemetery of Milan
Occupation	writer, poet
Language	Italian
Nationality	Italian
Notable awards	Viareggio Prize, Premio Dessì
Years active	1953-2008

Alda Merini (21 March 1931 – 1 November 2009) was an Italian writer and poet. She was born and died in Milan.

Life

Alda Merini was quite young when, as a poet, she gained the attention and the admiration of other Italian writers, such as Giorgio Manganelli, Salvatore Quasimodo and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Her writing style is described as intense, passionate and mystic, and it bears an influence from Rainer Maria Rilke.

Some of her poems concern her time in a mental home (1964 to the late 1970s) and are often of a long and dramatic nature. She explores the "otherness" of madness as part of creative expression. The poem "The other truth. Diary of a dropout" (L'altra verità. Diario di una diversa) is considered by some as her masterpiece, Scheiwiller, 1986.

A marble gravestone on the wall of a crypt

Alda Merini's grave at the Monumental Cemetery of Milan in 2015

In 2009 she received Italian Republic for Poetry.^[1] In 1996 she was also nominated by the "Académie Francaise" as candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 2007 she won the Elsa Morante Ragazzi Award with ‘Alda e Io – Favole’ written in cooperation with the fable writer Sabatino Scia. Giorgio Napolitano then President of the Italian Republic described her, at her death, as an "inspired and limpid poetic voice."

Poems to music

2004: Milva canta Merini, album of Italian singer Milva. Music by Giovanni Nuti.
2015: Dio, composition by Francesco Trocchia for female choir and piano; lyrics by Alda Merini (from Francesco 2007)

References

↑ "E' morta la poetessa Alda Merini – cantò il dolore degli esclusi" (in Italian). La Repubblica. November 1, 2009. Retrieved November 1, 2009.

External links

Media related to Alda Merini at Wikimedia Commons
Official homepage of Alda Merini
Alda Merini site
MEMORIAL

Recipients of the Viareggio Prize

1930s	Anselmo Bucci – Lorenzo Viani (1930) Corrado Tumiati (1931) Antonino Foschini (1932) Achille Campanile (1933) Raffaele Calzini (1934) Mario Massa – Stefano Pirandello (1935) Riccardo Bacchelli (1936) Guelfo Civinini (1937) Vittorio Giovanni Rossi – Enrico Pea (1938) Arnaldo Frateili – Orio Vergani – Maria Bellonci (1939)

1940s	Silvio Micheli – Umberto Saba (1946) • Antonio Gramsci (1947) • Aldo Palazzeschi – Elsa Morante – Sibilla Aleramo (1948) • Arturo Carlo Jemolo – Renata Viganò (1949)

1950s	Francesco Jovine – Carlo Bernari (1950) • Domenico Rea (1951) • Tommaso Fiore (1952) • Carlo Emilio Gadda (1953) • Rocco Scotellaro (1954) • Vasco Pratolini (1955) • Carlo Levi – Gianna Manzini (1956) • Italo Calvino – Pier Paolo Pasolini (1957) • Ernesto de Martino (1958) • Marino Moretti (1959)

1960s	Giovanni Battista Angioletti (1960) • Alberto Moravia (1961) • Giorgio Bassani (1962) • Antonio Delfini – Sergio Solmi (1963) • Giuseppe Berto (1964) • Goffredo Parise (1965) • Ottiero Ottieri – Alfonso Gatto (1966) • Raffaello Brignetti (1967) • Libero Bigiaretti (1968) • Fulvio Tomizza (1969)

1970s	Nello Saito (1970) • Ugo Attardi (1971) • Romano Bilenchi (1972) • Achille Campanile (1973) • Clotilde Marghieri (1974) • Paolo Volponi (1975) • Mario Tobino – Dario Bellezza – Sergio Solmi (1976) • Davide Lajolo (1977) • Antonio Altomonte – Mario Luzi (1978) • Giorgio Manganelli (1979)

1980s	Stefano Terra (1980) • Enzo Siciliano (1981) • Primo Levi (1982) • Giuliana Morandini (1983) • Gina Lagorio – Bruno Gentili (1984) • Manlio Cancogni (1985) • Marisa Volpi (1986) • Mario Spinella (1987) • Rosetta Loy (1988) • Salvatore Mannuzzu (1989)

1990s	Luisa Adorno – Cesare Viviani – Maurizio Calvesi (1990) • Antonio Debenedetti (1991) • Luigi Malerba (1992) • Alessandro Baricco (1993) • Antonio Tabucchi (1994) • Maurizio Maggiani – Elio Pagliarani (1995) • Ermanno Rea – Alda Merini (1996) • Claudio Piersanti – Franca Grisoni – Corrado Stajano (1997) • Giorgio Pressburger – Michele Sovente – Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Ernesto Franco (1999)

2000s	Giorgio van Straten – Sandro Veronesi (2000) • Niccolò Ammaniti – Michele Ranchetti – Giorgio Pestelli (2001) • Fleur Jaeggy – Jolanda Insana – Alfonso Berardinelli (2002) • Giuseppe Montesano (2003) • Edoardo Albinati – Andrea Tagliapietra – Livia Livi (2004) • Raffaele La Capria – Alberto Arbasino – Milo de Angelis (2005) • Gianni Celati – Giovanni Agosti – Giuseppe Conte – Roberto Saviano (2006) • Filippo Tuena – Paolo Mauri – Silvia Bre – Simona Baldanzi – Paolo Colagrande – Paolo Fallai (2007) • Francesca Sanvitale – Miguel Gotor – Eugenio De Signoribus (2008) • Edith Bruck – Adriano Prosperi – Ennio Cavalli (2009)

2010s	Nicola Lagioia – Michele Emmer – Pierluigi Cappello (2010) Alessandro Mari – Mario Lavagetto – Gian Mario Villalta (2011) Nicola Gardini – Franco Lo Piparo – Antonella Anedda (2012)

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 100979376 LCCN: nr91025034 ISNI: 0000 0001 2145 5889 GND: 119389592 SELIBR: 276669 SUDOC: 035639210 BNF: cb13326327t (data) NLA: 42204610 NKC: ola2004212048 ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\053500 BNE: XX1476827

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