|
|
|
|
Skip navigation and go to contents
Giuseppe Dessì was born in Cagliari, 7 August 1909 father: Francesco Dessì Fulgheri, mother: Maria Cristina Pinna. He spent the best part of his childhood and adolescence at Villacidro.
Restless young man and “unruly boy”, keen and insatiable reader, as he also likes to describe himself, Dessì is incapable of regular study.
It is during this period that he gains access to the library kept in a built-in cupboard, belonging to his grandfather, full of texts of a philosophical nature. These readings provoke profound disturbances in the young man.
And it was his father who came to the rescue giving Dessì a copy of l’Orlando Furioso, the reading of which represented the discovery of poetry and the recovery of his lost balance.
Somewhat late, Dessì frequented il Liceo Dettori at Cagliari from 1929. Here he makes acquaintances fundamental for his formation. He meets Delio Cantimori, his philosophy and history teacher and, via him, Claudio Varese; and it was Cantimori who suggested that he should enrol at Normale di Pisa.
Dessì was refused admission after sitting the entry exam, nonetheless he was close enough to that environment to allow him to meet many young “normalisti” (students or graduates from la Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) who remained his friends and companions for life.
During those years, at Pisa, he encounters crucial individuals belonging to Cantimori’s circle of friends: Aldo Capitini, Claudio Baglietto and Carlo Ludovico Raggianti, as well as Claudio Varese, Cordié, Russo and Momigliano.
In this climate of intellectual fervour and confrontation Dessì graduated in Literature in 1936.
A crucial figure during the Tuscan period was Claudio Baglietto who, in the name of his antifascist ideology, chose to go into exile; he inspired Dessì to create one of his most important characters, who returns in many works, a type of alter ego of the writer: Giacomo Scarbo.
In the following years he starts his teaching career and that of the divisional director of education. He changed cities several times for work reasons: until he settled at Rome, where he lived for the best part of his life until his death.
Mainland Sardinian, Dessì, felt a strong sense of belonging to his homeland, an intense homesickness for Sardinia and Villacidro above all; places that stand out as indisputable characters in his literary and poems.
1938 confirms Dessì as a writer with the publication of the collection of short stories La sposa in città.
Just one year later, in 1939, he publishes his first novel San Silvano, “il racconto con e per la memoria” (the tale with memory to be remembered) whose narrative style gave Dessì the name “il Proust sardo” “The Sardinian Proust”. The twofold need to find and analyse reality and to give space to his imagination without totally giving into it, is at the base of the writer’s poems and from this way with words, all of his successive works emerge.
In 1942, the novel Michele Boschino proposes two different narrative models: the first part is an objective search, carried out in third person whereas the second, with a harsh cut, is carried out in first person, providing a subjective and introspective reading. The quest for balance between these two types of poetry will become an integral part of all Dessì’s productions up to Paese d’ombre.
In 1959 Introduzione alla vita di Giacomo Scarbo, in 1961 Il disertore winner of the “Premio Bagutta” which arouses full approval from literary critics.
Playwright and essay works intertwine with narration: in 1958 the story La giustizia is released; in 1964 Eleonora d’Arborea and in 1965, in the volume Drammi e Commedie of the ERI the dramatic story La trincea, whereas in 1965, in an elegant volume, Scoperta della Sardegna, Dessì publishes a collection of the most significant pages written about the island by well known authors.
Not to be forgotten is also Dessì’s contribution to television and cinema, who from 1942 to 1967 worked on several documentaries and television productions most of which linked to Sardinia.
In 1966 the volume of stories Lei era l’acqua is released and in 1972 the novel Paese d’ombre, winner of the Premio Strega that year with extraordinary and unusual approval. It s a life long piece of work; pages which realise in perfect harmony, the twofold search, an essential part of the writer’s poetry.
From 1964, despite his painful illness, bedridden Dessì doesn’t give up writing and it is actually during those difficult years that he releases Paese d’ombre and La scelta, belatedly published in1978. In 1988 and 1989 two more works are released belatedly: the collection of essays Un pezzo di luna, the short stories Come un tiepido vento and a further two volumes of Diari and Poesie.
Giuseppe Dessì deceased, after a long-term illness, 6 July 1977 in Roma. His remains now rest at Villacidro, the centre of his world as a man and as a writer, to which he felt hypnotically attracted all his life.
