Valerio Magrelli: The Condominium of Flesh (with Jonathan Galassi)

Book Presentation

A darkly humorous exploration of the human body and its various functions in poetic prose, Valerio Magrelli’s personal chronicle of clinical experience catalogues a life history of ailments without ever being pathological. Every sensation and malfunction is placed under the subjective microscope of the poet’s eye and examined in excruciating and obsessive detail. This Gray’s Anatomy of the soul leads the reader on an inside-out voyage of discovery, with many surprises on the way. One of Italy’s most celebrated living poets, Valerio Magrelli has also attracted an international following.

The author will discuss his book with Jonathan Galassi.

Valerio Magrelli (1957) is a professor of French literature at the University of Cassino and a frequent contributor to the cultural pages of Italian newspaper La repubblica. He is the author of several prize-winning poetry collections, among them, Ora serrata retinae (1980), Nature e venature (Natures and Veinings, 1987) and Esercizi di tipologia (Typtological Exercises, 1992). Among his prose work, Nel condominio di carne (2003) recently published in the U.S. (The condominium of the flesh, 2016) and Geologia di un padre (2013). His latest poetry collection, Il sangue amaro, came out in 2014.

Jonathan Galassi is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux one of the eight major publishers in New York, and a translator of poetry and a poet himself.