Arrigo Lora Totino

Dalila Colucci (Harvard University)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

Born 3 Aug 1928
Died 15 Sep 2016
Activity c. 1955-2016

Places

Born in Italy
Active in Italy

Activities

Primary

Artist
Poet

Resources

Lora Totino's Works

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In March 1971, the eclectic poet Arrigo Lora Totino wrote to Jorge Luis Borges asking for the original version of his ineffable masterpiece

El Aleph

. He had read the Italian translation but could not find the Spanish text, which he wanted to review before visually translating a parenthetical sentence contained in the story: “(bambino, solevo meravigliarmi del fatto che le lettere di un volume chiuso non si mescolassero e perdessero durante la notte)” [“(as a boy, I would be astounded that the letters in a closed book didn’t get all scrambled up together overnight)”] (

The Aleph

130). There is no proof that this request, now stored in Lora Totino’s archive at the Fondazione Morra in Naples, ever received an answer, and yet it symbolically contains the essence of his poetic art,…

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2189 words

Citation: Colucci, Dalila. "Arrigo Lora Totino". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 March 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14150, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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