Erri De Luca

Biography

Erri De Luca's original first name was Enrico (Henry), an homage to his grandmother, who had American nationality, but defined by him as an "accident."

Upon completing high school in 1968 Erri De Luca joined the radical left-wing movement Lotta Continua. After the organization's disbanding he left political involvement. He worked as a blue collar worker at the Fiat factory in Turin and at the Catania airport. He also was a truck driver and a mason, working at job sites in Italy, France and Africa. He rode relief convoys in Yugoslavia during the war between 1993 and 1999.

Erri De Luca is self-taught in several languages including Ancient Hebrew, Swahili, Russian and Yiddish. He has translated books of the Old Testament from Old Hebrew and written commentaries on the Sacred Texts, as a "non-believer". He has published more than 70 books, numerous collections of short stories and poems, translated in more than 30 languages.

He appeared in a cameo role (of a mechanic) in the film L'isola, by Costanza Quadriglio. Erri De Luca's debut as screenwriter and leading actor was in the short film Di là del vetro (Beyond the Glass), presented at The Venice Film Festival 2011, Italy, World Premiere. "A night-time conversation between a man and his mother and a trip down memory lane through the phantoms of life. Erri De Luca opens the door to his house, transporting us into the universe of the past."

Again, with "The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars" he was screenwriter and actor, directed by Edoardo Ponti. The short has been in the short list for the Academy Awards 2013, and won the Tribeca Film Festival 2013. In the same year Erri De Luca started writing the story for the documentary film "Trees that Walk", and in the 2014 he wrote and interpreted the musical biography, "A Musical Imprinting".

De Luca is a passionate mountain climber. A reclusive character, he currently lives in the countryside of Rome.

Literature

Although he never stopped writing since he was 20, his first book was published in 1989, Non ora, non qui (Not now, not here). Many more books followed, best sellers in Italy, France and Israel, his work being translated and published in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, USA, Brazil, Poland, Norway, Danmark, Romania, Greece, Lithuania, and more. He has himself translated several books of the Bible into Italian like Exodus, Jonah, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, and explored various aspects of Judaism, as a non-believer.

In France, he received the France Culture Prize in 1994 for Aceto, arcobaleno, the Laure Bataillon Award in 2002 for Tre cavalli and, also in 2002, the Fémina Étranger for Montedidio, translated in English as God's Mountain. In 2010 he was given the German international literary Petrarca-Preis. He has been a member of the jury at the Cannes Festival in 2003. In 2013, he received the European Prize for Literature. In 2016, he received European Book Prize for his novel "Le plus et le moins".

Erri De Luca wrote for various newspapers (La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera Il Mattino, Avvenire), and other magazines.

Works

Translations by the author