(May 11, 2017) "Venerina saw alongside his uncle a gigantic young man, strange, blond, and somewhat smoky face, holding a cassette under his arm; then he bowed his eyes on the stretcher, which the sailors, to breathe again, had deposited at the entrance, and asked: Who is it? What happened?". The 1902 novel by Luigi Pirandello entitled "Lontano", tells the story of Lars, a Norwegian sailor who, typhus-sick, landed on the Sicilian island and ends up marrying Venerina, a local girl who did not want to marry anyone. This novel of the Italian playwright, writer and poet, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934, is at the center of a double meeting scheduled in South Africa. During the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pirandello, the Italian Cultural Institute of Pretoria presents, in fact, two lectures on the famous "Lontano" novel, organized by Professor Giona Tuccini. Both will be held in Johannesburg on Thursday May 18. The two conferences are part of the program promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, which includes more than 100 events on the worldwide calendar of commemorative events to pay homage to the figure and works of the great playwright. The conferences are also part of EuropeWeeks with the co-ordination of the European Delegation in South Africa. Tuccini is Associate Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Cape Town since 2010. In addition to studying the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Enrico Pea, he has been mainly involved in mysticism, with particular attention to medieval religious literature, Renaissance Christian and early twentieth-century spiritual culture. Other recent research focuses on interrelationships between mythology and imagology in modern literature, Luigi Illica's booklets, Neomedievalism and the Rediscovery of Renaissance in the Twentieth Century. (red)

ABOUT / THE PROGRAM

The first conference, organized in collaboration with the University of Witwatersrand, will be held in English at 11.30 with the title Sicilian stereotypes in Luigi Pirandello's "Lontano" at the HumanState Graduate Center Seminar Room of the same University. In his analysis of the tale, Prof. Tuccini aims to understand - in an intercultural perspective - how Pirandello dealt with the theme of diversity in everyday life, offering imaginary scholars the opportunity for a privileged reflection. In the late afternoon at 6pm, at the headquarters of the Dante Alighieri Society in Johannesburg, Prof. Tuccini will hold the second conference in Italian, titled “La Sicilia dell'Altro. Leggere “Lontano” di Luigi Pirandello”, organized in collaboration with the same Society. The work of Prof. Tuccini is divided into two main points: the reflection on the literary and philosophical theme of diversity in everyday life, visible in many details of this novel and the study of stereotypes crystallized in the motif of the alien. The two chosen paths engage in a central component of the work: the clash between the North and the South of the world.