About

Paolo Valesio

Paolo Valesio, critic and poet, is Giuseppe Ungaretti Professor Emeritus in Italian Literature at Columbia University. He previously studied and taught at the University of Bologna, Harvard University, New York University and (for a quarter century) at Yale University. Valesio founded and coordinated (from 1993 to 2004) the “Yale Poetry Group”. He also founded and directed the journal Yale Italian Poetry (YIP), which he now directs under the new title Italian Poetry Review (IPR); the journal, based at Columbia University, is published in Florence. He is president of the jury of the International Poetry Prize “Piero Alinari” in Florence and president of the Centro Studi Sara Valesio in Bologna.

Paolo Valesio’s areas of teaching and research include modern and contemporary Italian as well as comparative literature; rhetoric and spirituality; the theory and practice of creative writing. The author of numerous critical essays and articles, Valesio published several works of criticism (including Gabriele d’Annunzio: The Dark Flame), and has been editor of various literary texts, including most recently co-editor of the previously unpublished novel by F. T. Marinetti, Venezianella e Studentaccio. Paolo Valesio is the author of two novels and one collection of short stories. He is the prize-winning author of seventeen volumes of poetry (the latest being La mezzanotte di Spoleto). Paolo Valesio is currently working, among other projects, on an anthology of the poems by F. T. Marinetti, and keeps writing his “Pentalogia” – a complex of five different diaristic novels, which at this moment is comprised of approximately 20,000 pages.

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Poeta, narratore e critico, Paolo Valesio nasce a Bologna dove si laurea. Ottenuta in seguito la libera docenza, Valesio si trasferisce negli Stati Uniti, dove insegna a Harvard, New York University, Yale e attualmente alla Columbia University nella città di New York, dove è titolare della Cattedra “Giuseppe Ungaretti” in Letteratura Italiana. Egli dirige la rivista Italian Poetry Review presso la Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America (situata nel campus di Columbia), e collabora a riviste e giornali italiani.

Oltre a numerosissimi saggi, articoli, racconti e poesie sparse, Paolo Valesio ha pubblicato diciassette libri di poesia, due romanzi, una raccolta di racconti, e cinque libri di critica. Ha inoltre messo in scena un suo atto unico, e collaborato alla messa in scena di due opere teatrali tratte da due sue diverse raccolte di poesia. Da vari anni, Valesio è impegnato nella scrittura di cinque romanzi-diari, paralleli ma diversi, che costituiscono una Pentalogia narrativa ancora inedita (a parte alcune anticipazioni su riviste) e comprendente a questo punto  piu’ di 20.000 fogli manoscritti.