Much of what can be highlighted in a first encounter with Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the internationally renowned writer of
Il Gattopardo[
The Leopard], is the impact of the aristocratic world on his oeuvre. Direct experiences, vital memories and countless anecdotes are filtered through the writer’s imagination and distilled into his writing. Even so, Francesco Orlando -- who at the age of twenty benefited from Tomasi di Lampedusa’s lessons on French and English literature, attended the reading of
Il Gattopardoduring its writing process and typed out part of the book under the writer’s dictation -- warns that a strict correspondence between the author’s life and work should not be presumed.
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was born into an aristocratic family in Palermo in 1896. He
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Citation: Vagata, Daniela Shalom. "Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 November 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2602, accessed 19 April 2024.]
