Dino Buzzati – författare

Idealistic young officer Giovanni Drogo is full of determination to serve his country well. But when he arrives at a bleak border station in the Tartar desert, where he is to take a short assignment at Fort Bastiani, he finds the castle manned by veteran soldiers who have grown old without seeing a trace of the enemy. As his length of service stretches from months into years, he continues to wait patiently for the enemy to advance across the desert, for one great and glorious battle . . . Written in 1938 as the world waited for war, and internationally acclaimed since its publication, The Tartar Steppe is a provocative and frightening tale of hope, longing and the terrible sorcery of dreams and desires.

Only edition in printThis volume brings together twenty of the best stories written by Dino Buzzati – author of the celebrated novel The Tartar Steppe and one of the most original voices in twentieth-century literature – stories which show the Italian master’s taste for the bizarre and the humorous, and for exploring the darker recesses of the human psyche.From ‘The Collapse of the Baliverna’, where a man is racked with guilt at the thought that he might have been responsible for the loss of many lives, to ‘The Epidemic’, which describes the spread of a “state influenza” contracted only by people who don’t step into line with the government, and ‘Terror at the Scala’, where the higher echelons of Milan society are gripped with the fear of an impending revolution – these stories show how strange and unexpected events can creep into everyday life and draw ordinary people towards mystery, disquiet and, ultimately, catastrophe.

“Weird [and] wonderful” stories by a Strega Prize winner with “shades of Fellini, shades of Dickens, shades of the great Italian horror director Mario Bava” (Los Angeles Times).From “The Epidemic,” which traces the gradual effects of a “state influenza” that targets those who disagree with the government, to “The Collapse of the Baliverna,” in which a man puzzles over whether a misstep on his part caused the collapse of a building, to “Seven Floors,” which imagines a sanatorium where patients are housed on each floor according to the gravity of their illness and brilliantly highlights the ominous machinations of bureaucracy, Strega Prize–winning Italian writer Dino Buzzati’s surreal, unsettling tales reckon with the struggle that lies beneath everyday interactions and the sometimes perverse workings of human emotions and desires, and, with wit and pathos, describe the small steps we take as individuals and as a society in our march toward catastrophe.In “twenty riveting stories” (Publishers Weekly), Buzzati brings to vivid life the slow and quietly terrifying collapse of our known everyday world. In stories touched by the fantastical and the strange, and filled with humor, irony, and menace, Catastrophe illuminates the nightmarish side of our ordinary existence, and feels as timely today as ever.“Each of these stories is steeped in terror . . . Judith Landry’s vibrant translations render [Buzzati] at once witty and sinister.” —Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times–bestselling author of The Namesake“Out of a gothic tale . . . Frightening, lyrical, and provocative.” —The New York Times“[A] fantasist and moralist in the vein of Kafka [with] a bold inventive power that shows his kinship with such other unconventional spirits as Poe, Gogol, Borges, Donald Barthelme, and his countryman Italo Calvino.” —Christian Science Monitor“Some of Buzzati’s stories have the delicacy of fairy tales. . . Other stories have the visceral thrust of horror fiction. . . Buzzati’s varied and immensely satisfying stories will appeal to readers receptive to the possibility of the bizarre behind the banal.” —Publishers Weekly“An evocative collection that might pull the rug from under your feet.” —Kirkus Reviews

Una demoledora crítica de la sociedad opresiva de la Italia musoliniana.Siete plantas es uno de los más conocidos y mejores relatos de Dino Buzzati. Un libro esencial que nos hará reflexionar y que contiene tanta información sobre aspectos concretos de la actitud de los seres humanos ante la enfermedad y la muerte, así como sobre ciertas maneras, nada recomendables, de practicar la medicina en el marco de una institución cerrada, que constituye un excelente material pedagógico.Una demoledora crítica de la maquinaria que, se supone, debe estar a cargo de velar por la salud de los enfermos.

Modern italiensk, existentiell klassiker i efterlängtad nyutgåva Den unge officeren Giovanni Drogo är fast besluten att försvara sitt land i det krig som alla väntar på. Han anländer, full av idealistiska anspråk, till fästningen Fort Bastiani, en utpost överblickande den ödsliga Tataröknen, och möts där av åldrade veteraner som aldrig sett ett spår av fienden. Utan att han märker det går samma öde honom obönhörligen själv till mötes. Medan han väntar på den beryktade fienden har dagar blivit till år, och år till decennier. Under den gångna tiden har hans gamla vänner inne i staden gift sig och fått barn, levt fullvärdiga liv, allt medan Dino och hans medsoldater suttit ut en enda lång och tålmodig vaka. Dino Buzzatis Tataröknen - ofta jämförd med Franz Kafkas Slottet och Albert Camus Myten om Sisyfos - skrevs 1938 när hela världen väntade på att kriget skulle bryta ut. Det är samtidigt en svidande kritik mot det militära livet och en stillsam betraktelse av det mänskliga begäret efter ära. I översättning av Eva Alexanderson, med ett nyskrivet förord av författaren och kritikern Torbjörn Elensky. DINO BUZZATI [född 1906 i Belluno, död 1972 i Milano] var en italiensk författare, journalist och konstnär med en bred litterär repertoar. Hans verklista inkluderar utöver romanerna ett antal novellsamlingar, men också dramatik, lyrik och libretton. Mest känd är Buzzati för den existentialistiska romanen Tartaröknen [Il deserto dei Tartari, 1940] som kommit att betraktas som en modern italiensk klassiker.