In Italy for the major exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale “Fabulous Calvino. The world as a work of art. Carpaccio, de Chirico, Gnoli, Melotti and the others”, inaugurated today by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, in the year of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italo Calvino, the writer’s daughter, Giovanna, is truly moved and amazed.
“I wondered how they would visually represent a writer. They did very well. It’s a family trip where I learned new things,” says Giovanna Calvino in Rome with her thirteen-year-old daughter Violette Calvino Aguilar. But what does this route, which will be open to the public from October 13, tell us? “It is an exhibition that is not obvious and makes visible things that are difficult to represent. The things my father wrote could only be said in literature and they all posed a challenge to representability. In Invisible Cities there are many illustrations, but they are cities that cannot be illustrated, and that’s why I asked myself: What will they do in this exhibition? But they also managed to show his mental journey, the images that inspired him. I can’t explain it to him, but they did it very well. Well,” he says to “HANDLE.
Do you have the same worldview as your father? “In a way, yes. I hope so. My father never expressed an opinion. He gave me freedom. When I had to study a particular writer, he would tell me the date of birth and death, and I could see that he didn’t want that.” “I give subjective opinions. He strived for objectivity,” he says.
What did it mean to be Calvino’s daughter when you were young and now? “I don’t have any experience other than this, so it’s my life and it’s strange to share what is a very intimate experience for me. Since my father died suddenly and early, it is also a loss that I carry with me all my life.” “. Editor of the book “Italo Calvino Letters to Chichita 1962-1963”, which has just arrived in bookstores for Mondadori is. How did you come to the decision to publish this correspondence between your parents? “They are letters that I am also reading for the first time. I didn’t even remember having them, I found them in the drawers .”
I’m sure my mother would never have published them because they were so personal, but I really liked them and they seemed very shareable. I didn’t feel like I was giving anything away, maybe because so many years have passed. I wanted to share them. They are letters that my father wrote to my mother when they had just met. They lived in different countries, my mother didn’t have a phone. That was the way to communicate. They didn’t know each other well yet and he often described his life to her because he wanted her to share it, but he didn’t want to deceive her. He told her that his life was his work, that he was very impressed with the Einaudi publishing house, but at the same time he described her convincingly and then told her that she was the only person with whom he could really be himself. My father and mother liked the same things, were interested in the same things, and had the same sense of humor. “I like these letters very much and hope that readers like them too and that they have this universal value,” he emphasizes.
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