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| GIAN DOMENICO MAZZOCATO |
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GIAN DOMENICO MAZZOCATO (born in Treviso in 1946) is one of the most
well-known and regarded writers of Veneto of the latest generation. He graduated in history of the
Latin language with a thesis on Teofilo Folengo.
He taught Latin and Italian in one of the secondary
schools of his town for 35 years. He published some volumes of poetry (Il Fuoco vecchio, Straniarsi è qui,
Diapason con variazioni), in addition to monographs on contemporary artists and facts of tradition, for
which he has obtained several recognitions and prizes.
He is leader writer of the newspaper The Gazzettino di Venezia and he carries out an intense journalistic
activity. He has written texts for some photographic books dedicated to the region of Veneto, among which
Alte Terre (photographs by Antonio Piovesan), which contains a collection of short stories, Crepuscoli;
La Bella Marca (photographs by Ruggero Piccoli) and Veneto per sempre (photographs by Cesare Gerolimetto).
He is the translator for the Newton Compton Editori of the classics: he has translated the Historiae by Tacito and
the trilogy of the minor works by the same author (Agricola, Germania, Dialogo degli oratori).Afterwards,
always for the Newton Company, he has supervised the translation and the comment of the 35 books that
constitute the huge historiographic work by Tito Livio, of which he has also been in charge of the critical
apparatus and the indexes. |
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In November 2005 Piazza Editori published the translation of La vita di San Martino,
the last great poem that the Latin civilization has produced, a work by the writer from Valdobbiadene,
Venanzio Onorio Clemenziano Fortunato. The book Martino, l’uomo che divise il mantello (edited by La vita
del popolo, 2004), derives from his studies around the figure of the saint archbishop from Tours.
In 1997 was published his first novel, Il delitto della contessa di Onigo (edited by Santi Quaranta), which
has met an extraordinary success of the critics and public, so as to reach the eighth edition in little time and
to be awarded the Gambrinus Mazzotti prize. Writers such as Fulvio Tomizza and Luca Desiato (and a bit all
criticism) have stressed how all the work by Mazzocato has had the merit of founding a real saga of the
"defeated" of Veneto. His second novel, Il bosco veneziano, (in its fifth edition) deals with the theme
of emigration and of the lost countries. In 2001 came out his third narrative work, Gli ospiti notturni,
in few months in its second edition. |
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| Also his theatrical production is having a great success of public. After drawing a pièce
from his first novel (Il delitto della contessa), he has traced the occurrence of a war madness in
the “deep Veneto” in Mato de guera, a monologue of great intensity and dramatic force in which the
soldier Vardanega Ugo (to whom an extraordinary actor, Gigi Mardegan, gives voice), survivor of the
First World War, shouts all his horror against the war. Nowadays Mazzocato is probably the most
represented living writer from Veneto. |
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| The critic Gianni Giolo has written that “Mazzocato is the best, richest, deepest and
most prolific writer of the latest generation in Veneto”.
And the researcher Sara Stocco, who has made her degree thesis on Mazzocato’s fiction, underlines how
the writer gives voice, at last, in the “deep Veneto”, to a province that had never entered the Italian
literature up to now. (Another degree thesis, at the university of Anversa, has been written on him by
the Belgian researcher Sofie Lotry: both texts are in the site of the writer of Veneto). |
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In 2003 came out the novel Il caso Pavan (published by San Liberale, finalist at
the Chianti Prize 2005). The absolute protagonist is the eighteenth century, lived in a mysterious popular
Veneto, inhabited by peasants, merchants, workers, wanderers, smugglers, thieves and prostitutes.
Mazzocato is working at a great collection of stories of Veneto. In December 2003 was published the first
chapter. 1909/Delitto a filò, another extraordinary page of the underestimated history of Veneto.
In December 2005 came out Il Ritorno, recalling a troubled vicissitude of love and blood, which took
place near Treviso around 1880.
Writings and works by Mazzocato can be seen in his site www.giandomenicomazzocato.it;
he can be contacted by writing to giandoscriba@tin.it.
Translated by Luisa Antonello. |
| MEETINGS WITH GIAN DOMENICO MAZZOCATO, WRITER
FROM VENETO |
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| On Friday April 7, 2006 at 6:00 p.m. care of Ca dei Carraresi in Treviso : G.D.
Mazzocato'll present IL CICLISTA DEL DUCE by Mario Bernardi (Editrice Santi Quaranta); it is a special book characterized by the narrative absorbing spirit of a great writer from Veneto. |
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| On Friday April 21, 2006 care of Palazzo dell'Umanesimo Latino in Treviso : G.D. Mazzocato'll speak about RADEGONDA E VENANZIO, UNA STORIA DEL VI SECOLO, the Latin poem by Venanzio Fortunato. |
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