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July 29, 2021 Writer and publisher Roberto Calasso, president and managing director of the Adelphi publishing house, died in Milan at the age of 80 after a long illness.
He was born in Florence on May 30, 1941. Essayist and storyteller, in 1962, at the age of 21, he became part of a small group of people who, together with Roberto Bazlen and Luciano Foà, were developing the program for a new publishing house : under his leadership Adelphi has become one of the most important brands in quality publishing.
Just today his last two books, "Bobi" and "Memé Scianca", come out in bookstores.
Son of the jurist Francesco Calasso and Melisenda Codignola, in turn the daughter of the pedagogist Ernesto Codignola, Roberto Calasso attended the Tasso high school in Rome and graduated in English literature with Mario Praz discussing a thesis entitled 'Sir Thomas Browne's hieroglyphs'. He was editorial director of Adelphi in 1971, managing director in 1990 and from 1999 he also became president. He currently owned 71% of the capital as shareholder. He was married to writer Fleur Jaeggy.
Since the beginning of the 80s Calasso has written several books, between non-fiction and fiction, in which history, myths, philosophy are intertwined and which form a monumental work of over four thousand pages. Among the best known titles 'The Ruin of Kasch' (1983), 'The Wedding of Cadmus and Harmony' (1988), 'Ka' (1996), 'K.' (2002), 'Il rosa Tiepolo' (2006). 'La Folie Baudelaire' (2008), 'The ardor' (2010), 'The Celestial Hunter' (2016), 'The current unnameable' (2017). Alongside this work, Calasso has also published essays on literary criticism such as' The forty-nine steps' (1991), 'Literature and the gods' (2001),' A hundred letters to a stranger '(2003),' The madness that comes from the Nymphs' (2005).His books are translated into 25 languages and published in 28 countries.