Albert Russo

Early life and education

Son of an Italian Sephardic father, born in Rhodes, and of a British mother who grew up in Rhodesia, he lived with his family in Congo, Ruanda-Urundi, Rhodesia and traveled to South Africa during 17 years. After graduating from high school in Bujumbura, at the Athenee Interracial, learning four languages, French, English, Dutch and German, with a knowledge of vernacular Swahili, he pursues his studies at New York University, getting a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, in 1964, minoring in psychology and economics. This is when he started writing his poems in English. In 1965 he spent a year in Heidelberg and obtained a degree in German culture and literature at Collegium Palatinum. That same year he settled in Milan (Italy) where he continued to write while working with his father in the family import-export firm.

Literary career

His first novel, La Pointe du Diable, written in French, and dealing with apartheid, is published in Brussels, (Belgium) in 1973 and the following year he wins both the Prix Colette in Cannes (France) and the Prix de la Liberte in Paris. In 1975 he goes back to New York where he teaches languages to adults, meanwhile he pursues his writing mainly in English and publishes poems and short stories, contributing, both as writer and translator to various magazines, such as Confrontation, The Literary Review, The Poet, Atlas World Review, and Philadelphia Poets. He also translates film scripts for children's documentaries at UNICEF. In 1978 he went back to Europe and decided to live in Paris.

Translated in a dozen languages, Albert Russo has written more than 25 works, including novels, books of short stories and of poetry. Africa is one of his major themes. Mixed Blood (published first by Domhan Books in New York, then by Imago Press in Arizona) garnered the Best Fiction Award in 1985 by Volcano Review in California. Both Mixed Blood and Eclipse over lake Tanganyika were nominated for the 2001 e-books award at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. Among his other novels are Le Cap des Illusions (formerly entitled La Pointe du Diable) republished by Editions du Griot in Paris, France, his humorous Zapinette series (in both English and French), his large volume of short stories, fables and essays The Crowded World of Solitude, vol 1, started in New York in the late 1970s, as well as the bilingual books of poetry Futureyes, and the large volume of poems (40 years of writing) The Crowded World of Solitude, vol 2. He has also produced about 50 books of photography with and without poetic captions.

All his works, along with some manuscripts and literary letters by various authors, are to be found at the Archives and Museum of Belgian Literature in Brussels (Belgium). Mixed Blood has been the subject of the Capes degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris in the English department of literature. The Zapinette Video series was also taught at the Catholic University of Paris to foreign students.

During the 1980s, having in common their Congolese experience, their love of and their interest for Africa, he befriends the Italian artist and philosopher Joseph Pace, founder in Paris of Filtranisme, a neo-existential philosophical and artistic current. In the 2000s he also befriended the poet, artist and photographer Adam Donaldson Powell, with whom he authored in 2009 Gaytude, a volume of poetry encompassing the gay experience on the five continents with photography by Albert Russo.

As a photographer he has garnered several prizes in the US, especially from National Indie-Excellence (winner and finalist), photo pursuit (formerly photo challenge), Gallery Photografica (silver medal). Some of his photos have been exhibited at the Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne (Switzerland).

In 1996 he is a juror at the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which often leads to the Nobel Prize of Literature. Some of the Neustadt canditates, laureates or jurors having obtained the Nobel Prize are: Elias Canetti, Wole Soyinka, Jose Saramago, Nadine Gordimer, Eugenio Montale, Claude Simon.

Albert Russo has had seven books translated into Italian, L'Amante di mio padre (2001), Sangue Misto (2008), Shalom Tower Syndrome (2008), Sotto il Picco de Diavolo (2012), Io, Hans, figlio di nazisti (2013) and Zapinette a Parigi (2013).

Bilingual writer, he freely discusses topics such as anti-racism, individual and collective freedoms, and LGBT freedoms.