Albino Pierro

Biography

He was born in Tursi in the province of Matera. He had a very troubled childhood, his mother dying prematurely. His childhood was also characterized by a disease that often the sight forced him to live his days in the shadows:

When I was a child I stood in the corners of the rooms
and the dark little eyes
my stinging, red (and how) covered nettle.
They said the country
that I would become blind ...

As a teenager, after a period of frequent journeys, to Taranto, Salerno, Sulmona, Udine and Novara, he settled finally, in Rome in 1939. He graduated in 1944 in philosophy, and in 1946 began his career as a letter published in various collections in the language, until in 1959 with A land we remember which began its production in dialect Tourist Office. Since then he pulled away from the language of his native land, where the militant criticism reflected the deepest impressions of the Romance languages, thanks to phonic resources and symbolic idiom. Through careful and continuous work and formal metrics, Pierro was able to recreate the dialect, and the evocative atmosphere related to the memory of his childhood, which returned to him many regret that contribute to the pain inside due to the distance from his land.

...How am I to do, my Madonna,
as I do?
I've left the country
which gave me the breath of heaven,
and now in this town,
I slam in his face only the walls,
many things haunt me and cries,
like a vermicaio ...

In 1976, has won the award Carducci for poetry. In 1986 and 1988, he was close to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, was recognized as a great poet even abroad. In 1985 was invited by the University of Stockholm to a poetry reading. Received in 1992 honorary degree from University of Basilicata. In 1993 The Normale di Pisa school organized a meeting with the poet.

On 23 March 1996, exactly one year after his death, the City Council, proclaimed Tursi "City of Pierro" and named the schools, including kindergarten, elementary and Media, after him. To the City of Tursi has donated his house and the library containing thousands of books.

TL;DR Really? Reader, look I know you have a long a boring day ahead of you, but if you wait to read this about a phenomenal person I bet you might not have even heard about, IT MIGHT IMPACT YOU! Anyway a really cool guy. Give it a try for real.

P.S. Also, he was not actually an Albino, though the description states him with red eyes.

English Language Translations

Lucan Language works

Works in the vernacular

Videography

Critical Studies