Roberto Bazlen, also known as Bobi Bazlen (10 June 1902 – 27 July 1965) was an Italian writer and publicist.

Biography

Bazlen was born in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...

on 10 June 1902. His father, Eugenio Bazlen, a Lutheran native of Stuttgart, died one year after his birth, and he was raised by the family of his mother, Clotilde Levi Minzi, from Trieste, belonging to the Jewish middle class. He studied in the German language school ''Real Gymnasium'', where he became passionate about literary subjects, encouraged by his teacher, Professor Mayer. After he left Trieste, he lived in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. He was a friend of Luciano Foà,

Adriano Olivetti Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901 – 27 February 1960) was an Italian engineer, politician, and industrialist whose entrepreneurial activity thrived on the idea that profit should be reinvested for the benefits of the whole society. He was son of ...

Giacomo Debenedetti Giacomo Debenedetti (Biella, 1901 – Rome, 1967) was an Italian writer, essayist and literary critic. He was one of the greatest interpreters of literary criticism in Italy in the 20th century, one of the first to embrace the lessons of psychoanal ...

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...

and

Eugenio Montale Eugenio Montale (; 12 October 1896 – 12 September 1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature. Life and works Early years Montale was born in Genoa. His family were ch ...

, and part of the circle of artists of the Caffè Garibaldi together with

Umberto Saba Umberto Saba (9 March 1883 – 26 August 1957) was an Italian poet and novelist, born Umberto Poli in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean port of Trieste when it was the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poli assumed the pen name "S ...

, who in 1921 dedicated his ''Canzoniere'' to his "six readers" Bazlen, Romanellis, Giotti, Schiffrer, Rovan and Bolaffio. It was Bazlen who recommended to Montale Svevo's ''

Confessions of Zeno ''Zeno's Conscience'' ( it, La coscienza di Zeno ) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini, and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps because his psychiatrist recommended to do so in or ...

'' (of which he was one of the first discoverers). Bazlen never published anything in life, but a posthumous collection of his writings (1984, which also includes his letters to Montale) included works like ''Lettere editoriali '' (1968), ''Note senza testo'' (1970) and ''Il capitano di lungo corso''. Bazlen's life is at the center of the novel '' Lo stadio di Wimbledon'' (1983) by

Daniele Del Giudice Daniele Del Giudice (11 January 1949 – 2 September 2021) was an Italian author and lecturer. He lived in Venice, where he taught theatrical literature at the University Iuav of Venice. Biography Born in Rome in 1949, Del Giudice researched av ...

, which was adapted to film by

Mathieu Amalric Mathieu Amalric (; born 25 October 1965) is a French actor and filmmaker. He is best known internationally for his roles in the James Bond film ''Quantum of Solace'', in which he played the lead villain, Steven Spielberg's ''Munich'', Wes Ande ...

under the title ''Le stade de Wimbledon'' (2002).

Roberto Calasso Roberto Calasso (30 May 1941 – 28 July 2021) was an Italian writer and publisher. Apart from his mother tongue, Calasso was fluent in French, English, Spanish, German, Latin and ancient Greek. He also studied Sanskrit. He has been called "a l ...

's final monograph, published the day after his death, was devoted to the subject of Bazlen's life and study.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bazlen, Roberto 1902 births 1965 deaths 20th-century Austrian people Italian publishers (people)