Giacomo Oreglia

Giacomo Stefano Oreglia (23 June 1924 – 12 November 2007) was an Italian writer, poet, essayist, editor, screenwriter and translator of Swedish literature into Italian.

In his hometown obituary, he is described as one of the main cultural mediators between Italy and Sweden.

Biography

Giacomo Oreglia was born in Mondovì. In 1948, Oreglia defended his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Turin. He then won a scholarship to study in Stockholm, where he settled permanently.

Until 1983, Oreglia taught Italian literary and theatrical history at the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm. He then moved to Stockholm University.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Stockholm University in 1974. For his translation of Dikter, the poetry collection by the writer Johannes Edfelt, he was awarded the Monselice Prize in 1979. In 2004, he was awarded a tribute prize by the Swedish Academy on his 80th birthday.

Giacomo Oreglia died in Stockholm at the age of 83. He was buried in the cemetery of Solna.

Works

Through the Stockholm-based publishing house Italica, founded and directed by Oreglia, he has introduced the texts of leading Italian poets to the Scandinavian countries. In particular, he published works by Salvatore Quasimodo and Eugenio Montale, later winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, some of which have been translated by the Permanent Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy, the Italianist Anders Oesterling.

In the other direction, Oreglia also translated works into Italian, including August Strindberg, Gunnar Ekelöf, Erik Lindegren, Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson, Lars Forssell and Tomas Tranströmer.

Major publications

As editor

• Italienska utan språkstudier: med angivande av uttalet (1949; with Karin Thomson)
• Italienska berättare från Boccaccio till Moravia: en antologi (1952)
• Italienska noveller (1961)
• Poesia svedese (1966)
• Dizionario tascabile Italiano-svedese, svedese-italiano (1992)

Essays

• Pagine di prosa e poesia italiana dalle origini ai contemporanei (1952; with Edvin Lagman)
• Cinque ore in casa O'Neill (1956)
• La commedia dell'arte (1961)
• Ingmar Bergman: Sei film (1979)
• Dante: liv, verk &samtid (1991)
• Roma brucia! (1997)

Poetry

• Dante anarca e i suoi sei maestri (1990)

Translations

• Ingvar Andersson, Storia della Svezia (1953)
• Artur Lundkvist, Dikter (1960)
• Pär Lagerkvist, Barabba (1962)
• Harry Martinson, Dikter (1964)
• Gunnar Ekelöf, Dikter (1966)
• Karl Vennberg, Dikter (1966)
• Vittorio Alfieri, Mitt liv (1973)
• Tommaso Campanella, La città del sole (1974)
• August Strindberg, Notti di sonnambulo ad occhi aperti (1974)
• Harry Martinson, Le erbe nella Thule (1975)
• Angelo Beolco, Dialoghi (1976)
• Johannes Edfelt, Dikter (1978)
• Harry Martinson, Le opere (1978)
• Lars Gustafsson, Dikter (1980)
• Lars Forssell, Poesie (1990)
• Lars Gustafsson, Poesie (1997)
• Tomas Tranströmer, Poesie (1999)
• Artur Lundkvist, Il poeta nel vento e altre poesie (2000)

External links

• Giacomo Oreglia at the Internet Movie Database