As a young man, Alessandro Baricco spent a decade doing odd jobs that included writing blurbs for novels, speeches for politicians and penning mechanical manuals. It was drudgery, but the Italian author, director and dramatist honed a skill that has since served him well — the art of telling a story.
The 45-year-old best known for Silk, a novel that has been translated to various languages, is in Mumbai to write another story—this time on The David Sassoon Library and Reading Room — before he sets off for Chennai, where he will meet the Tamil publisher of the latest translation of the 1996 novel.
"It's almost unbelievable — the book goes out into the world and you never know what happens with it. Some publisher falls in love with the book, finds the money and translates it. I have met a number of people around the world ( Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Thailand and Estonia) who have a lot of passion to take care of my stories," muses Baricco.
Baricco is passionate about stories, too. In 1994, he founded Scoula Holden, a Turin, Italy-based storytelling and performing arts school, which throws open its doors to international students this year. For over two decades, Baricco and a faculty of five have taught their writer-students (journalists, writers, advertisers, among others) the importance of being distracted. A storyteller, he says, must dabble indifferent streams to hone her talent. In his school, for instance, a student of journalistic writing is often taught a course on comics, or videogames, besides going on treks with a professor. In short, a true story teller is the Renaissance Man — learned about different things.
Barrico is the perfect example of such a storyteller. After the success of Silk, he wrote a theatrical monologue Novecento, which was adapted into a film The Legend of 1900, and directed a film based on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony called Lezione 21. Besides this, he has penned essays on music criticism for Italian daily La Repubblica, and hosted talk shows. His latest venture is a series of stories for Vanity Fair magazine, on "the five best places in the world in which you can think intelligent things about yourself and the world." Besides the 143-year-old Sassoon Library, he will write about a casino in Los Angeles, a cafe in Morocco, a train station in Hanoi and the Boca Stadium in Buenos Aires.
"It's along title," he laughs, even as he points out that Sassoon Library makes the list not for the quietit offers. "The windows are open, the noise of the street filters in — it's marvellous. In a library, my brain goes dead and nothing strikes me. In Sassoon library, however, I've had the best insights about myself and people," says Baricco, who first visited the Kala Ghoda library last year.
Baricco recommends this distractiontoallhisstudents.Atennisfan,he offers the example of Andre Agassi's training, where the tennis star's coach would throw balls standing behind Agassi. Not knowing what to expect, Agassi learnt to be quick on his feet and aware of his surroundings. "A writer, too, must be open, surprised and aware of the world around him," he says.
The 45-year-old best known for Silk, a novel that has been translated to various languages, is in Mumbai to write another story—this time on The David Sassoon Library and Reading Room — before he sets off for Chennai, where he will meet the Tamil publisher of the latest translation of the 1996 novel.
"It's almost unbelievable — the book goes out into the world and you never know what happens with it. Some publisher falls in love with the book, finds the money and translates it. I have met a number of people around the world ( Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Thailand and Estonia) who have a lot of passion to take care of my stories," muses Baricco.
Baricco is passionate about stories, too. In 1994, he founded Scoula Holden, a Turin, Italy-based storytelling and performing arts school, which throws open its doors to international students this year. For over two decades, Baricco and a faculty of five have taught their writer-students (journalists, writers, advertisers, among others) the importance of being distracted. A storyteller, he says, must dabble indifferent streams to hone her talent. In his school, for instance, a student of journalistic writing is often taught a course on comics, or videogames, besides going on treks with a professor. In short, a true story teller is the Renaissance Man — learned about different things.
Barrico is the perfect example of such a storyteller. After the success of Silk, he wrote a theatrical monologue Novecento, which was adapted into a film The Legend of 1900, and directed a film based on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony called Lezione 21. Besides this, he has penned essays on music criticism for Italian daily La Repubblica, and hosted talk shows. His latest venture is a series of stories for Vanity Fair magazine, on "the five best places in the world in which you can think intelligent things about yourself and the world." Besides the 143-year-old Sassoon Library, he will write about a casino in Los Angeles, a cafe in Morocco, a train station in Hanoi and the Boca Stadium in Buenos Aires.
"It's along title," he laughs, even as he points out that Sassoon Library makes the list not for the quietit offers. "The windows are open, the noise of the street filters in — it's marvellous. In a library, my brain goes dead and nothing strikes me. In Sassoon library, however, I've had the best insights about myself and people," says Baricco, who first visited the Kala Ghoda library last year.
Baricco recommends this distractiontoallhisstudents.Atennisfan,he offers the example of Andre Agassi's training, where the tennis star's coach would throw balls standing behind Agassi. Not knowing what to expect, Agassi learnt to be quick on his feet and aware of his surroundings. "A writer, too, must be open, surprised and aware of the world around him," he says.
"We've built a completely weird world (in the school) in the past 20 years," he laughs. Needless to say, Holden Caulfield, the angsty teenage protagonist of JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye on whose name the school is based, would approve.
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