Grace and disgrace
If we were to attempt to find a common thread running through some of the earliest Ligurian works, we would certainly point to an unconditional love of Genoa. Thus, the city inspired Calfaro di Rustico da Caschifellone (c.1080-1164) to write Annales extolling the ardor of the Genoese during the First Crusade, and anticipating the power that the Republic of Liguria was to acquire. Two centuries later, Jacques de Voragine (c. 1228-1298) - also known for his lives of saints in La Légende dorée (The Golden Legend) - dedicated his Chronicles to him, and it was certainly shortly afterwards that a man about whom little is known began to write, hence his nickname of "the anonymous Genoese". A large body of his work remains in the Codex Molfino (named after the man who discovered it in 1821), which is also the oldest work written, at least in part, in Ligurian. After Agostino Giustiniani (1470-1536) had mapped his native region for the first time in his Descrittione della Lyguria, published in 1537, Paolo Foglietta (1520-1596) also took up the theme dear to his predecessors... only to draw a merciless counter-portrait! According to the poet, the city had given in to mercantilism and had become denatured in its unbridled quest for profit, and even the vernacular - which he used - had lost its charm by integrating far too many words of Tuscan origin..
The debate went on for another century. During this century, however, the Ventimigliesi Angelico Aprosio (1607-1681) created Liguria's first public library, and the Genoese Anton Giulio Brignole Sale (1605-1662) brilliantly embraced Baroque and comedy(Li Comici schiavi). Then came Stefano De Franchi, known as Steva (1714-1785), who fiercely defended the charm of the Ligurian language in Ro stampao a ri prouve e boin zeneixi che lezeran, while acknowledging a certain lack of vocabulary, which he felt was not entirely a handicap. But it was already time for the Risorgimento, that Italian resurrection synonymous with unification, in which Giovanni Ruffini, born in Genoa in 1807 and dying in Taggia in 1881, would take part. His support for the Republican Mazzini cost him a long exile, which was also reflected in his writings, since two of his most famous works - Lorenzo Benoni, with its strong autobiographical accent, and Il Dottor Antonio, later adapted for the cinema - were written in English before being translated into Italian. Goffredo Mameli, who died at the age of 21 in 1849, was in turn associated with the great patriotic movement. Although his life was short, he had time to sign the lyrics of the national anthem: Le Chant des Italiens (1847).
End and beginning of the century
The second half of the 19th century proved to be a happy time for Ligurian literature: the Genoese Federico Donaver (1861-1915) set about describing his city with loving precision in his numerous works, including school textbooks, while the Savonesi Giuseppe Cava (1870-1940) brought the vernacular to life with such grace that he gained international fame, notably for In to remoin. Ceccardo Roccatagliata Ceccardi (1871-1919) waxed lyrical when evoking the splendor of his province's landscapes in his poetry(Apua Mater, Viandante, Libro dei frammenti), earning the admiration of two illustrious writers he influenced: Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) and Eugenio Montale (1896-1981). The former is published in French by Clémence Hiver with Copeaux et Pianissimo : rémanences. Although he remains fairly confidential on our side of the border, there's no doubt that his reputation has outlived him. Eugenio Montale, on the other hand, is well known, especially since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. A self-taught, bulimic reader, his work is a reflection of himself and his land: sparse (a few volumes can be counted on the fingers of two hands), but essential. It has been translated by Verdier under the title Papillon de Dinard, which also contains La Maison aux deux palmiers, a good way of grasping all the subjects dear to the author, from his childhood memories to his concerns about the rise of fascism... This fine publishing house also offers to read, with Le Gel du matin, Giorgio Caproni, who was not a native of the region but was intimately linked to it, as was Italo Calvino, born in 1923 in Cuba. Indeed, it seems unthinkable not to mention this great writer, as he used Liguria as the backdrop for his first novel, Le Sentier des nids d'araignées (1947), which evoked the Second World War and the Italian Resistance to which he had belonged, and then for one of his huge successes, Le Baron perché. Two years his junior, Imperia-born Cesare Vivaldi, joined the avant-garde movement Gruppo 63, where he was reunited with Genoese Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010). Both were prolific, but only the latter has been translated into our language: Cahier de brouillon and L'Amour des trois oranges, for example, are available from Nous. While these authors ingeniously distort language, they also take the liberty of exploring other avenues, and even other arts, such as Giovan Battista Carpi, who went on to make a career in comics. Hired by Disney, he drew numerous stories using Donald as a hero, and enjoyed creating parodies - such as that of Les Misérables - that made him famous... and recognized!
In literature, Francesco Biamonti (1928-2001), the man of a thousand lives, left behind a deeply moving and unsettling body of work, which began in 1983 with L'Ange d'Avrigue (Verdier, 1990), an unparalleled portrayal of a harsh and savage Liguria. Through the eyes of the protagonist, a drug addict on the verge of death, the once comforting landscape becomes threatening. Wandering will again be at the heart of a second novel from Seuil: Les Paroles la nuit. Last but not least, we must mention Paolo Villagio, a very popular actor and writer, thanks to the comic character of Ugo Fantozzi, which he created and then played, and Bruno Morchio, also from Genoa, author of a series of black novels that had a huge following. Finally, Maurizio Maggiani, born in Castelnuovo Magra in 1951, was awarded the prestigious Prix Strega and can be read thanks to Actes Sud: Treize variations sur l'amour (2004), Le Voyageur nocturne (2006) and Le Courage du rouge-gorge (2009). More recently, Genoa-based Antonio Paolacci and Paola Ronco have begun a series of crime novels featuring the city in all its contemporary complexity and Paolo Nigra, a charismatic homosexual cop (Nuages baroques in 2022 and Le Point de vue de Dieu in 2024, published by Rivages).
