Tommaso Landolfi defies easy classifications and ranks. Any attempt to pigeonhole his work into reassuring frameworks of existing genres and taxonomies is a lost cause. He has the elitist reputation of being a “writer’s writer”, a wizard with words and challenging – if not, occasionally, impossible – to translate. Despite the high praise and admiration he has garnered from intellectuals such as Italo Calvino and Eugenio Montale, and the growing scholarly interest in his work, Landolfi is still among the least read and known Italian writers of comparable status and accomplishment.

Landolfi was born on August 9th, 1908, in Pico Farnese, a small Italian village, which, at the time, was in the province of Caserta (Frosinone today). His father, Pasquale, belonged to an aristocratic

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Citation: Cesaretti, Enrico. "Tommaso Landolfi". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 January 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13343, accessed 23 November 2024.]

13343 Tommaso Landolfi 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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