Antonella Anedda – författare

A bilingual edition of the selected poems of the celebrated contemporary Italian poet Antonella Anedda.A thin stream of water flows into the sinkice stripes the windowsand it's difficult to think about the sea breezeand the banging of the trolleysand the whistle of the morning sirennone imply heroism. from "e;In the windows"e; Emerging from the Winter Sea is a wide-ranging bilingual collection that brings together poems from across Antonella Anedda's career, showcasing the depth and range of one of Italy's most celebrated poets.The concerns of Anedda's work-family, art, nature, war-are approached with a deep sense of the context of history, surging and receding like the waves that strike La Maddalena, the Sardinian archipelago she sees as a homeland. Her Italian is fresh, evolving, tied to, though straying from, local dialects and the lineage of Latin; it is clear in its communicative power yet elemental in that her simple language only seems so. In poems of domestic interiors, lines that succinctly capture great works of visual art, and descriptions of the great destruction wrought by nations at war, Anedda emerges as a sharp poetic chronicler of history as it is lived. The effect is one of startling intimacy, and of close acquaintance with a voice of powerful authority.

Archipelago is a bilingual selection of poems by the leading Italian poet Antonella Anedda drawn from five collections she has published in Italy. Her poetry has a searing, disruptive quality, an honesty that is hard won. Her words have the air of breaking the silence reluctantly, and they keep the silence with them. This stringent, ferrous element sets her at odds with the eloquence and lyricism characteristic of the Italian poetic tradition, and may owe something to an alternative nationality, a different landscape. Though born in Rome, she comes from a Sardinian family and has passed a great deal of her life between the capital and a small island, La Maddalena, off the coast of Sardinia, and the languages she was brought up hearing were Logudorese, Catalan from Alghero, and Corsican French mixed with the dialect of La Maddalena - and of late she has found herself also writing a number of poems in Logudorese. While her poems have a geographical sweep, there is also an insistence on domestic detail - balconies, crockery, sewing, cooking: elements often considered too humble to warrant poetic attention. But even here they are often set against a backdrop of war and insecurity, and a poem in these surroundings, such as her 'Kitchen', is as likely to be the site of a haunting. Her first book, Winter Residences, already posited an elsewhere, that of St Petersburg, and an elective affinity with another culture. With time, and with the emergence of her next four books of poetry, this sense of apartness has increased, as has the force and particularity of her language - and has made her, along with Valerio Magrelli, one of the most valued and original poets of her generation.

Archipelago is a bilingual selection of poems by the leading Italian poet Antonella Anedda drawn from five collections she has published in Italy. Her poetry has a searing, disruptive quality, an honesty that is hard won. Her words have the air of breaking the silence reluctantly, and they keep the silence with them. This stringent, ferrous element sets her at odds with the eloquence and lyricism characteristic of the Italian poetic tradition, and may owe something to an alternative nationality, a different landscape. Though born in Rome, she comes from a Sardinian family and has passed a great deal of her life between the capital and a small island, La Maddalena, off the coast of Sardinia. The languages she was brought up hearing were Logudorese, Catalan from Alghero, and Corsican French mixed with the dialect of La Maddalena – and of late she has found herself also writing a number of poems in Logudorese. While her poems have a geographical sweep, there is also an insistence on domestic detail – balconies, crockery, sewing, cooking: elements often considered too humble to warrant poetic attention. But even here they are often set against a backdrop of war and insecurity, and a poem in these surroundings, such as her ''Kitchen'', is as likely to be the site of a haunting. Her first book, Winter Residences, already posited an elsewhere, that of St Petersburg, and an elective affinity with another culture. With time, and with the emergence of her next four books of poetry, this sense of apartness has increased, as has the force and particularity of her language – and has made her, along with Valerio Magrelli, one of the most valued and original poets of her generation.

Maria Lai (Ulassai, September 27, 1919 - Cardedu, April 16, 2013) is without doubt one of the leading figures in the history of contemporary Italian art. Not only on account of the content of her works, but also thanks to the diversity of her artistic approach, ranging as it does across many media - public art, embroidery, weaving, sculpture, drawing, and writing: all are grist for her poetics. The book is published to coincide with the exhibition at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, which is presenting to the general public over one hundred works by the Sardinian artist, from the early 1960s to her very last works, and explores the various themes dear to the artist with the contributions of experts in their fields: the locations, the creation, and publication of art books, her public art events and her relationship with the written word and her own writing. Her entire oeuvre is distinguished by its powerful visual impact, revealing a 'way of doing art' that is nothing other than an instrument of thought. The book's structure reflects the exhibition's own sections, arranged by theme, whose titles are paradigmatic of Lai's oeuvre as a whole: Essere è tessere. Cucire e ricucire; L'arte è il gioco degli adulti. Giocare e raccontare; Disseminare e condividere; Il viaggiatore astrale. Immaginare l'altrove; L'arte ci prende per mano. Incontrare e partecipare. Published to accompany an exhibition at the MAXXI Museum, Rome, 19 June 2019-12 January 2020.Text in English and Italian.