Catanzaro
Catanzaro (; or ; ), also known as the "City of the two Seas" (), is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its province and the second most populated comune of the region, behind Reggio Calabr ...
, 7 October 1918 –
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
, 8 January 2006) was an Italian artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. Best known for his works of
décollage
''Décollage'' is an art style that is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by ripping and tearing away or otherwise removing pieces of an original image.psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters. He was associated to the Ultra-Lettrists an offshoot of
Lettrism
Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and cultur ...
and later was a member of the ''
Nouveau Réalisme
A ''nouveau'' ( ), or ''vin (de) primeur'', is a wine which may be sold in the same year in which it was harvested.
The most widely exported ''nouveau'' wine is French wine Beaujolais ''nouveau'' which is released on the third Thursday of ...
'', founded in 1960 by the art critic
Pierre Restany
Pierre Restany (22 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher.
Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning ...
.
Biography
1918–1951
After finishing school studies he moves to
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
in 1933 to pursue his artistic studies, but he got a job at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 1941, he moved to Rome. He remains in the capital only for a short period, because he is called up. In 1944 he left the army and he graduated from the Art School of Naples. Between 1944 and 1945 he teaches drawing in
Catanzaro
Catanzaro (; or ; ), also known as the "City of the two Seas" (), is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its province and the second most populated comune of the region, behind Reggio Calabr ...
. In 1945 he returned to Rome and, following his figurative beginnings and first experimentations, he began to paint new-geometric paintings. He starts in 1947 to participate at the exhibition, with the Exhibition Board of Fine Arts and the annual Art Club. In 1949 he devoted himself to the phonetic poetry experiments, calling epistaltic (a meaningless neologism), which in the same year he draws up the Manifesto (published by L.Sinisgalli in "Civilization of machines")
1951–1953
In 1951 he had his first contact with French art, exhibiting in Paris at the Salon des Nouvelles Réalités. Between 1951 and 1952, he obtained the award of a scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation, which allows him to travel to the US as an "Artist in Residence" at the University of Kansas City. Also in 1952 he realized the second personal exhibition at the Rockhill Nelson Gallery in Kansas City. In the United States he had the opportunity to meet representatives of the new artistic currents:
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" or "Bob" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combine painting, Combines (1954� ...
,
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
,
Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and photographer.
Twombly influenced artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, and Jean-Michel Bas ...
,
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...
and
Yves Klein
Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein wa ...
.
1953
In 1953, he suffers from an artistic crisis, during which interrupts his pictorial production. Now convinced that there is nothing to be done again in art, suddenly what he calls "Zen illumination": the discovery of the advertising poster as artistic expression of the city. Thus the
décollage
''Décollage'' is an art style that is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by ripping and tearing away or otherwise removing pieces of an original image.cubists
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
and contaminating it with
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
ist array of ready made. In 1955, in Rome, in the exhibition "actual art exhibition", he exhibited for the first time the 'torn poster'. Later, he practiced the so-called double décollage: the poster firstly removed from the billboard, then torn up in his studio. In those years he also made use of the retro d'affiche, using the posters pasted on the side and obtaining non-figurative and
monochrome
A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...
works.
1953–1960
The first awards arrive in 1956 with the Graziano Award and in 1957 with the Battistoni Prize and Public Education. With the
Cinecittà
Cinecittà Studios (; Italian for Cinema City) is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios were constru ...
series of 1958, select figures and faces of film advertising directing production toward more figurative works. At the end of the Fifties, Rotella, is labeled by critics as a ripper or painter of glued paper. At night, tearing not only posters but also pieces of sheet metal from frames of the billboard zones of the Rome Municipality. In 1958 he receives in Rome the visit of the French critic
Pierre Restany
Pierre Restany (22 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher.
Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning ...
, with whom he began a long association. In the same year he participated in Rome in the exhibition "New Italian art trends" organized by Lionello Venturi in the seat of Rome - New York Art Foundation. The curiosity of the public for the artist's extravagances, culminated in 1960 with the creation, the work of Enzo Nasso, a short film dedicated to angry Painters, which cure Rotella spoken commentary.
1960–1980
Also in 1960 he joined the New Realism - but he didn't sign the manifesto - theorist of which
Pierre Restany
Pierre Restany (22 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher.
Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning ...
and bringing together, among others,
Yves Klein
Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein wa ...
Arman
Arman (November 17, 1928 – October 22, 2005) was a French and American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave (''cachets'', ''allures d'objet'') t ...
and
Christo
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...
. The group will also take part in the French Hains, Dufrêne and Villeglé, operating on
décollage
''Décollage'' is an art style that is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by ripping and tearing away or otherwise removing pieces of an original image.Pop Art and
Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
, with the Informal and the spatial and material research in those years,
Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Italian Argentines, Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor, and theorist. He is known as the founder of Spatialism and exponent of Abstract art, abstract painting as the f ...
and
Alberto Burri
Alberto Burri (12 March 191513 February 1995; ) was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as ...
taking place in Italy, they play an important role in the orientation of Rotella. In 1961 he composed a historical exhibition À 40 ° au-dessus de Dada, edited in Paris by Restany. In 1962 he gives a presentation on his art at the
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
History
This school was started by Silas ...
in New York and in 1964 he was invited to the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
and, in 1965, the IX Quadrennial of Rome.
Using typographic tools, between 1967 and 1973 he created his Art-typo, prints chosen and reproduced freely on the canvas. This procedure is able to overlap and superimpose advertising images, reversing the previous approach.
In the early seventies produces some works by intervening on the advertising pages of magazines with the use of solvents and reducing or state at the imprint (frottage) or deleting one (effaçage). In 1972, he published his autobiography entitled Autorotella.
In 1975 he recorded his first disc of phonetic poetry and in 1976 he took part in the "International Poetry Recital Sonora - Poetry Action". Another trial, in those years, it is that of rolling up posters and closing them in plexiglass cubes.
1980–2006
Finally he left Paris to settle in
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
(1980), in the eighties he processes the "blanks" or affiches covers: zeroed advertising posters covered with white sheets, as with the expired advertisement. In 1984 he made the second cycle of works dedicated to the cinema: Cinecittà 2. After 1986 he realizes 'Sovrapitture', inspired by graffiti: intervenes pictorially of torn poster glued on canvas. It drew anonymous writings, such as those that can be read on city walls: love notes and political slogans, etc., in a double message. In 1990 he participated at the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
in Paris in the exhibition "Art et Pub" and the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in New York exhibition "High and Low". He married in 1991 with the Russian Inna Agarounova, and in 1993 they had a child called Asya.
In 1992 from the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, he receives the title of 'Officiel des arts et des Lettres'.
A foundation dedicated to him was established in 2000, to the artist's will: the 'Fondazione Mimmo Rotella', with the aim of collecting the works and documents cataloged in the artistic life of the teacher. In 2004 Rotella received an honorary degree in Architecture at the University Mediterranea of
Reggio Calabria
Reggio di Calabria (; ), commonly and officially referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the List of cities in Italy, largest city in Calabria as well as the seat of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria. As ...
.
He was invited to the
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
Guggenheim Museum in 1994 for the exhibition "Italian Metamorphosis", then again at the Centre Pompidou in 1996 in "Face à l'Histoire", and in 1996 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in "Halls of Mirrors "exhibition subsequently exported all over the world. The
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and ...
film dedicates the series of works called Fellini.
He died in Milan on January 8, 2006 at the age of 88 years.
Artwork
Décollages
Décollage
''Décollage'' is an art style that is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by ripping and tearing away or otherwise removing pieces of an original image.New Dada. Back in Rome he became inspired by torn posters around the town and began to carry them in his studio and to work on them. The result was the creation of canvases on which Rotella pasted one or more pieces of torn posters, often superimposed. Rotella wanted to somehow find some form of artistic innovation and at the same time give artistic dignity to a common object, and of little value removed from its natural environment.
The first trials of Rotella with decollage date back to 1953. The first decollage, in most small cases, were exhibited for the first time in the spring of 1955.
Retro d'affiches
The two roads that Rotella takes on simultaneously, starting in 1953-1954 are those of decollage and retro posters. The first retro d'affiche documented back to 1954. The retro d'affiche are displayed for the first time to the public in December 1955 at the personal exhibition the artist held at the Galleria del Naviglio in
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
. Unlike decollage where often textural layers are wrapped together and manipulated, in the back of posters the artist retains the "urban relic". In these works his speech tends to be subtle, the colors are often absent, the surface is gritty and raw, it has compared to decollage a more targeted research to informal language, except that it will become evident starting especially from the sixties when decollages in expected to bet influenced by the rising pop language.
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
,
Washington D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
MART
Mart may refer to:
* Mart, or marketplace, a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods
* Mart (broadcaster), a local broadcasting station in Amsterdam
* Mart (given name)
* ''Mart ...
,
Rovereto
Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River.
History
Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the fronti ...
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
Centre Georges Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...
Modern,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
MoMa
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
MoMa
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
Isernia
Isernia () is a town and ''comune'' in the southern Italian region of Molise, and the capital of the province of Isernia.
Geography
Situated on a rocky crest rising from between the Carpino and the Sordo rivers, the plan of Isernia still refl ...
* MACRO — Museo d´Arte Contemporanea Rome
* MART — Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto,
Trento
Trento ( or ; Ladin language, Ladin and ; ; ; ; ; ), also known in English as Trent, is a city on the Adige, Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the Trentino, autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ...
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
* MUMOK — Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna
* Museum Ludwig,
Köln
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
* Musée National d’Art Moderne –
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, Paris
* MUSEION - Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art,
Bolzano
Bolzano ( ; ; or ) is the capital city of South Tyrol (officially the province of Bolzano), Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The ...
* Museo d´Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce,
Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
, Washington DC
* Sintra Museu de Arte Moderna – Collecçao Berardo,
Sintra
Sintra (, ), officially the Town of Sintra (), is a town and municipality in the Greater Lisbon region of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The population of the municipality in 2021 was 385,654, in an area of . Sintra is one of the ...
Hannover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...
* The
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...
* ''Porta Portese'', in “Civiltà delle Macchine” (Roma), anno III, n. 1, gennaio 1955.
* ''Il canto notturno dei pesci'', in “Civiltà delle Macchine” (Roma), anno III, n. 3, aprile 1955.
* ''Cara Roma, ricordi quando i pittori…'', in “Corriere della Sera” (Milano), 26 ottobre 1987.
* ''“Autopresentazione”'', in ''Mimmo Rotella'', Galleria d’Arte Selecta, Roma 1957.
* ''“Autopresentazione”'', in ''Alternative Attuali'', L’Aquila 1962
* ''Caro Le Noci'', 1961, in P. Restany, ''Rotella: dal décollage alla nuova immagine'', Edizioni Apollinaire, Milano 1963.
* ''“Autopresentazione”'', in ''Alternative Attuali 2. Rassegna Internazionale di Pittura Scultura Grafica'', L’Aquila 1965.
* ''Autorotella. Autobiografia di un artista'', Sugar, Milano 1972.
* ''Autopresentazione'', 29 aprile 1984.
* ''L’ora della lucertola'', Spirali/Vel, Milano 2002.
* P. Restany, Le ‘Nouveau Réalisme’ de Rotella, in “Metro 6 Special”, Arti Grafiche delle Venezie (Vicenza), June 1962
* P. Restany, Rotella: dal décollage alla nuova immagine, Edizioni Apollinaire, Milan, 1963
* P. Restany, Le
Nouveau Réalisme
A ''nouveau'' ( ), or ''vin (de) primeur'', is a wine which may be sold in the same year in which it was harvested.
The most widely exported ''nouveau'' wine is French wine Beaujolais ''nouveau'' which is released on the third Thursday of ...
1960-1970, in “Chroniques de l’art vivant” (Paris), n. 14, October 1970
* T. Trini, Rotella, Prearo, Milan 1970
* A. Bonito Oliva, The Italian Trans-avantgarde. La transavanguardia italiana, Giancarlo Politi, Milan 1980
* G. Appella, Colloquio con Rotella, Edizioni della Cometa, Rome 1984
* Hunter Sam (a cura di), Rotella. Décollages 1954 - 1964, cat. mostra Galleria Marconi, Milano, Ed. Electa, November 1986.
* C. Francblin, Les Nouveaux Réalistes, Editions du Regard, Paris 1997
* G. Joppolo, Mimmo Rotella, Fall, Paris 1997
* Celant, Mimmo Rotella. 1946-2005, Skira Editore, Milan 2007
* F. D’Amico, Rotella. Disegni, Umberto Allemandi & C., Turin 2008
* A. Fiz (a cura di), Mimmo Rotella. Opere su carta, Mondadori Electa, Milan 2008
* A. Fiz (a cura di), Mimmo Rotella. Roma Parigi New York, Skira, Milan 2009
* A cura di Bruno Di Marino, Marco Meneguzzo, Andrea La Porta, Lo sguardo espanso. Cinema d'artista italiano 1912-2012, Silvana Editoriale, 2012
* G. Celant (a cura di), Mimmo Rotella. Décollages e retro d'affiches, Skira, Milan 2014
* Poesie der Großstadt. Die Affichisten''. Bernard Blistène, Fritz Emslander, Esther Schlicht, Didier Semin, Dominique Stella. Snoeck, Köln 2014
in the ''New York Times'', USA, 13 January 2006
Obituary in the ''Independent'', UK, by
James Kirkup
James Harold Kirkup (23 April 1918 – 10 May 2009) was an English poet, translator and travel writer. He wrote more than 45 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He wrote under many pen-names including James Falconer, Aditya Jha, ...