Luigi Pirandello Boeken

Set against the backdrop of early motion picture production, the narrative centers on Serafino Gubbio, a fictional Italian camera operator. Through his 'journal,' the story explores modernist themes such as isolation and madness, reflecting the complexities of human experience in a rapidly changing world. Pirandello's work delves into the psychological struggles of Gubbio, offering a profound commentary on the nature of reality and perception in the film industry.

Serafino is a typical Pirandellian anti-hero, a spectator rather than a participant in the tragi-comedy of human existence. Indeed he has the perfect job for it, that of a film cameraman. Serafino is an observer, an impersonal tool of a new industry based on make-believe. All he has to do is turn the handle of his camera and watch. He has no part in what is going on and is so removed from life that the mauling of an actor by a tiger cannot deflect him from filming the action. The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio is set in Rome circa 1915, partly on a film set, partly in the city.

Nobel Prize-winner Luigi Pirandello's ENRICO IV concerns a passionate and despairing 20th-century man who imagines himself to be an 11th-century king. "The time is the early 1920s and the place is an isolated Italian villa, but it might as well be the 12th century. The master of the house bumped his head twenty years ago during a costume ball and has since believed himself to be King Enrico IV of Germany. As the play goes on, perception, reality, fantasy and freedom become confused...an effective new adaptation by Richard Nelson." Chad Jones, The Oakland Tribune "ENRICO IV is about a man who deliberately chooses to dwell in the rich fantasy life of his madness even after he regains his sanity. Pirandello's finely strung paradox probes the issue of what self-concept qualifies as sane. Richard Nelson's beautifully translated script paired with Pirandello's priceless insight into self-image and delusion...make this truly an evening of epiphany." Pamela Fisher, San Francisco Examiner "A sparkling new translation" Pat Craig, San Francisco Times

Pirandello's plays are a daring exploration of human actions and the dark motives lying behind them, and the culmination of the naturalistic school of theatre inaugurated by authors such as Ibsen and Chekhov.

Renowned for his innovative plays, Luigi Pirandello, an Italian literary giant, transformed psychological analysis into compelling theatre, earning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. His extensive body of work includes novels, hundreds of short stories, and approximately 40 plays, with some written in Sicilian. His tragic farces laid the groundwork for the Theatre of the Absurd. Notably, his first significant work, Marta Ajala, emerged in 1893, followed by his first short story collection, Amori Senza Amore, in 1894.

For twenty years he lives this illusion but today a plot is being hatched to shock him out of this 'madness' and into the twenty-first century.Pirandello's Henry IV, in Tom Stoppard's new version, premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in May 2004.

Luigi Pirandello, an influential Italian writer and Nobel Prize laureate, is celebrated for his innovative contributions to drama and literature. His extensive body of work encompasses novels, numerous short stories, and around 40 plays, with some crafted in Sicilian. Known for his tragic farces, Pirandello's unique style paved the way for the Theatre of the Absurd, showcasing his bold exploration of identity and reality. His literary legacy continues to impact the world of theater and storytelling.

The great Pirandello's (1867-1936) 1926 novel, previously published here in 1933 in another translation, synthesizes the themes and personalities that illuminate such dramas as Six Characters in Search of an Author.Vitangelo Moscarda ``loses his reality'' when his wife cavalierly informs him that his nose tilts to the right; suddenly he realizes that ``for others I was not what till now, privately, I had imagined myself to be,'' and that, consequently, his identity is evanescent, based purely on the shifting perceptions of those around him. Thus he is simultaneously without a self--``no one''--and the theater for myriad selves--``one hundred thousand.'' In a crazed search for an identity independent of others' preconceptions, Moscarda careens from one disaster to the next and finds his freedom even as he is declared insane.It is Pirandello's genius that a discussion of the fundamental human inability to communicate, of our essential solitariness, and of the inescapable restriction of our free will elicits such thoroughly sustained and earthy laughter.

A masterful collection by a literary giant of the past century, rendered by one of our most esteemed Italian translators