Tiziano Terzani (
14
september 1938 -
28
July 2004) was an Italian journalist and
writer.
Biography
Terzani
was born in Florence
to poor
working class parents. He attended the University of Pisa
as a law
student and pupil of Collegio Medico-Giuridico (now
Sant'Anna School of Advanced
Studies
). After graduating, he worked for
Olivetti, the office equipment producer.
In 1965 he
went on a business trip to Japan
. This
was his first contact with
Asia and his first
step towards his decision to change his life radically and explore
Asia. During these years he again began writing for
l'Astrolabio. He then resigned from Olivetti
and moved to
Columbia University
in order to study
Chinese language
and culture.
After a
first stint as journalist within Italo
Pietra's Il Giorno, in 1971 he moved
to Singapore
as a reporter, with his
wife and their two small children, as the Asian correspondent for
the German weekly Der Spiegel. He
then offered his collaboration to the Italian
daily newspapers Corriere della Sera and
La Repubblica. In the
meantime, on a semi-secret level, he sent regular information about
East Asian politics to the
Banca Commerciale Italiana, which
was headed by
Raffaele
Mattioli.
Terzani knew much about the historical and political background of
Asia, but had also a deep interest in the philosophical aspects of
Asian culture. Though an unbeliever, he always looked in his
journeys for the spiritual aspects of the countries he was
visiting.
He lived in Beijing,
Tokyo
, Singapore, Hong Kong
, Bangkok
and New Delhi
which became his second home. His stay in
Beijing came to an end when he was arrested and expelled from the
country for "
counter-revolutionary activities".
Based on
his experiences, he wrote La Porta Proibita (Behind
The Forbidden Door), a highly critical book about
post-maoist China
.
Terzani's experiences in Asia are described in articles and essays
in newspapers, as well as in the several books that he wrote. In
his first book,
Pelle di leopardo (
Leopard Skin)
(1973), he describes the last phases of the
Vietnam war.
Two years later he would face death when
trying to document the new Democratic Kampuchea: the Khmer Rouge wanted to shoot him after his
arrival in the border town of Poipet
, and he
saved his life only by his knowledge of the Chinese language. In what is perhaps his
most well-known book, Un indovino mi disse (A
Fortune-Teller Told Me), Terzani describes his travels across
Asia by land and sea following the advice and warning from a
fortune teller in Hong
Kong that he avoid airplanes for a year. One
chapter of the book is entirely dedicated to
Ferdynand Ossendowski, Polish
traveller.
Ryszard
Kapuściński wrote about this book "A great book written in the
best traditions of literary journalism... profound, rich and
reflective". Kapuściński and Terzani shared the same vision of
journalism.
[88910]
In 1997, Terzani received the
Luigi
Barzini Prize for his activities as a reporter. After
9/11 he wrote
Lettere
contro la guerra (
Letters Against the War). The book
was born as a response to the anti-
islamic
invectives published by the Italian journalist and author
Oriana Fallaci on the daily
Il Corriere
della Sera on
29 September
2001.
In his last book
Un altro giro di giostra (
One More
Ride on the Merry-go-round), Terzani deals with his
illness, (a
tumor) which
eventually led to his death, but not before he had travelled and
searched through countries and civilizations, looking for a
cure for his
cancer and
for a new vision of life. A short excerpt from his book:"...after a
while, the goal of my
journey was not the cure
for my cancer anymore, bur for the sickness which affects all of
us:
mortality"
He spent the last months of his life in
Orsigna
, a little
village in the Apennine
mountains
in the province of Pistoia
that he
considered "his true, last love".
Terzani died on
28 July 2004. His last memories are recorded in an interview
for Italian television entitled "Anam", an Indian word that
literally means "the one with no name", an appellative he gained
during an experience in an
ashram in
India.
His testament-book
La fine è il mio inizio (
The End Is
My Beginning), authored with his son Folco, was published
posthumously in March 2006 and sold 400,000 copies in 4 months. Its
New Age theme has been attacked by Roman
Catholic sources such as the newspaper
Avvenire.
[88911] However Terzani in
Un altro giro di
giostra is sceptical about the
New
Age.
It has been announced that a movie will be shot about Terzani's
life, based on
La fine è il mio inizio. Terzani will be
played by
Bruno Ganz.
His books are being translated to many languages: German, French,
Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Slovenian, Japanese,
Chinese and by publishers from India (English), Thailand (English),
Brazil (Portuguese) and Argentina (Spanish).
Books published in English
- Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon
(Giai Phong! La liberazione di Saigon, 1976, reprinted also in Thailand in 1997 as Saigon 1975: Three Days and Three
Months)
- Behind The Forbidden Door: Travels in Unknown China
(La porta proibita, 1985)
- Goodnight, Mr Lenin: A Journey Through the End of the
Soviet Empire (Buonanotte, signor Lenin, 1993)
- A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earth-bound Travels in the Far
East (Un indovino mi disse, 1997)
- Letters Against the War (Lettere contro la
guerra, 2002)
Books published in Italian
- Pelle di leopardo. Diario vietnamita di un
corrispondente di guerra 1972-1973, 1973
- Giai Phong! La liberazione di Saigon,
1976
- La porta proibita, 1984
- Buonanotte, signor Lenin, 1992
- Un indovino mi disse, 1995
- In Asia, 1998
- Lettere contro la guerra, 2001
- Un altro giro di giostra, 2004
- La fine è il mio inizio, 2006
- Fantasmi: dispacci dalla Cambogia, 2008
See also
References
External links
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