Arc Publications logo

50 years at the cutting edge of poetry publishing

“A meeting point for poets of all latitudes”
— Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

Fabio Pusterla Switzerland

FABIO PUSTERLA was born in Mendrisio in 1957. A graduate in
modern literature at the University of Pavia, he works in Lugano
(Switzerland), teaching at the local high school and at the
university, and lives across the border in Valsolda, in Como
province (Italy).

As well as many essays on linguistic and literary topics, he
has published Cultura e linguaggio della Valle Intelvi (in collaboration
with Claudia Patocchi, Senna Comasco, 1983), and an anthology
entitled Lombardia (in collaboration with Angelo Stella and Cesare
Repossi, La Scuola, Brescia, 1990). He has also edited a critical
edition of the narrative works of Vittorio Imbriani for the
Fondazione Bembo (3 vols., Longanesi-Guanda, Milan, 1992-1994).

His translations include four collections of poems by Philippe
Jaccottet (Il Barbagianni. L'Ignorante, with an essay by Jean
Starobinski, Einaudi, Turin, 1992; Alla luce d'inverno. Pensieri sotto le
nuvole
, Marcos y Marcos, Milan, 1997), and other verses collected
together in Edera e calce (Ancona, 1995). Also by Jaccottet, he has
translated prose pieces relating to travel in Italy, contained in
Libretto (Scheiwiller, Milan, 1995), the volume Paesaggi con figure assenti
(Dadò, Coll. CH, Locarno, 1996) and the essay Austria (Bollati
Boringhieri, Turin, 2003). He has also translated and written a
preface to the novel Adagio by the Portuguese writer Nuno Judice
(Ripatransone, Sestante, 1994), and various prose pieces and
poems by Yves Bonnefoy, Nicolas Bouvier, André Frénaud,
Maurice Chappaz, Corinna Bille, Eugenio De Andrade and Daniel
De Roulet, which have appeared in reviews or anthologies. For
his work as a translator, he won the Premio Prezzolini in 1994. He
has edited an anthology of contemporary French poetry, Nel pieno
giorno dell'oscurità
(Marcos y Marcos, Milan, 2000), and Cento piccole
storie crudeli
by Corinne Bille (Casagrande, Bellinzona, 2001).

His volumes of poetry include Concessione all'inverno
(Casagrande, Bellinzona, 1985, for which he was awarded the
Premio Montale and the Premio Schiller; 2nd ed. 2000), Bocksten
(Marcos y Marcos, Milan, 1989), Le cose senza storia (ibid., 1994, for
which he received the Premio Hermann Ganz and the Premio
Valle del Metauro 1994); Isla Persa (I semi del salice, Locarno 1998),
Laghi e oltre (with Alida Airaghi and Anna Felder, Lietocollelibri,
1999), Pietra Sangue (Marcos y Marcos, Milan, 1999; Premio Schiller
2000; finalist Premio Viareggio 2000); and the "plaquettes" Sotto il
giardino
(with French and German versions, Lausanne, 1992), Tra la
terra e il cielo
(with Antonio Rossi and Francesco Scarabicchi,
engravings by Alberto Rocco and an introduction by Massimo
Raffaelli), Danza macabra (Lietocollelibri, 1995) and Bandiera di carta
(published by Fabrizio Mugnaini, Scandicci, 1996). More recent is
the Livre d'artiste Pietre, produced in collaboration with the artist
Massimo Cavalli and published by Sassello di Novazzano (2000).

In 2002, he published the brief sylloge Ipotesi sui castori, for Flussi
editions of Valmadrera, edited by Vincenzo Girelli, followed in
2003 by Sette frammenti della terra di nessuno (ibid.), subsequently
collected together in the volume Folla sommersa (Marcos y Marcos,
Milan, 2004). His essays on education, Una giocca di splendore
(Casagrande, Bellinzona) appeared in 2008. The anthology Le terre
emerse. Poesia 1985-2008
(Einaudi, Turin) was published in 2009,
and a year later the collection Corpo stellare (Marcos y Marcos, 2010)
appeared. Both books have won several prizes, the Einaudi
anthology the Premio Dessì in 2009 and Corpo stellare the Premio
Schiller and the Premio Ceppo Pistoia, both in 2011. Fabio Pusterla
was awarded the Premio Gottfried Keller for lifetime achievement
in 2007.

His works have also been published in French: (Une voix pour le
noir
, translated by Mathilde Vischer, preface by Philippe Jaccottet,
Ed. D'En Bas, Lausanne, 2001; Deux Rives, translated by Philippe
Jaccottet and Béatrice de Jurquet, Cheynes, 2002; Les choses sans
histoire
, translated by Mathilde Vischer, Empreintes, Lausanne,
2003; Ultimes paysages, translated by Eric Dazzan, L’arrière-Pays,
2009); in German (So lange Zeit bleibt / Dum vacat, translated by
Hanno Helbling, afterword by Massimo Raffaeli, Limmat Verlag,
Zurich, 2002; Bocksten, translated by J. Aerne, Limmat Verlag,
Zurich, 2010); in Serbian (Stvari bez istorije, translated by Dejan Illic,
Belgrade, 2002; Folla sommersa, translated by Dejan Illic, Belgrade,
2007); and Spanish (Bocksten, translated by Di Rafael-José Diaz,
Qualea, Torrelavega, 2008). Many individual poems have appeared in
translation in reviews or anthologies in the main European languages.

(2012)