Guest of ilb 2004
Claudio Magris was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1939.
He studied Literature and Philosophy in Turin. His dissertation 'Il
mito asburgico nella letteratura austriaca moderna' (1963; Engl: The
Habsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature), was published when he was
twenty-four, and formed the themes and theoretical sources for later
publications. After an academic residency in Freiburg, he taught at the
University of Turin, before becoming Professor for New German
Literature at the University of Trieste in 1978. As a specialist
in Middle European Literature, he has published numerous essays and
critical studies on writers such as Wilhelm Heinse, E.T.A. Hoffmann and
Joseph Roth. Since the late 1970’s he has written regularly for a
column in the newspaper 'Corriere della Sera'. A selection of his
texts, 'Itaca e oltre' appeared in 1982. That same year a collaboration
with the historian Angelo Ara was also published: 'Trieste.
Un'identita di frontiera'. On this cultural and literary foray
through the city, in which James Joyce, Italo Svevo and other writers
once lived, the authors ask questions regarding Trieste’s identity with
regard to the heterogenous influences of the empire and of Italian,
Slovenian, German, Greek and Jewish culture. Four years later, in
'Danubio' (1986), Claudio Magris set out to trace the diverse Habsburg
realm. Following the course of the Danube, he offered in an
essayistic-biographical travelogue consisting of myths, anecdotes,
stories about men, cities and landscapes, as well as philosophical and
literary meditations a detailed panorama of the cultural and literary
area of this "only true European river". Apart from his essays,
Magris has written the novella 'Illazioni su una sciabola'
(1984), the play 'Stadelmann' (1988) and the novel 'Un altro mare'
(1991). Claudio Magris has been honoured with many awards. In
1997 he received the most important literary prize in Italy: the Premio
Strega, for 'Microcosmi' (1996), in 2004 he was awarded the Prince of
Asturias Prize and in 2005 the Austrian State Prize. Essays from
1974 to 1998 were collected in 'Utopia e disincanto' (1999). His
most recent work is the novel „L´infinito viaggiare” (2005). Claudio
Magris lives in Trieste.
© international literature festival berlin | 
FrankHensel_frei.jpg)