Dante Marianacci 
 
  
  
Here Is No Departure 

Here is no departure, 
No farewell – 
Merely a fumbling attempt 
To concoct a different game 
By twisting the usual path. 
This is the day you were born; that is why  
 you exist. 
With this thought in mind, you shuffle in  
 slippers 
Through unpacked rooms of memory 
In your foreign home, 
Timidly sketching new steps 
Inventing objects 
In the silence that settles down 
Heavier than loneliness 
And when the dust is brushed away, you see 
The book is blank 
You are trapped in the pain 
Of an unresolved puzzle: 
Thicken the tedium once again 
Or plunge into the rainbow of crazy life? 
 

 was born in 1948 in Ari in the region of Chieti in Abruzzo, Italy. He worked as a teacher and a journalist before entering the diplomatic service in the early seventies. His first collection of poems Like a Seagull was published in 1970, followed by The Voyage to Tiresias, 1975, Small Islands on Earth, 1977, Graffiti, 1980, Masks and Fortresses, 1985, Prague Reports, 1990 and The Returns of Odysseus, which received the Penne Prize in 1997. A collection of essays, Italian Culture on the Threshold of the 21st Century, appeared in 1995. He is director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague. 

Narodil se roku 1948 v Ari v oblasti Chieti v Abruzzo v Itálii. Pracoval jako vysokoškolský učitel a žurnalista a na počátku 70. let vstoupil do diplomatických služeb.  První sbírku básní Jako racek publikoval v roce 1970, následovaly Cesta za Tiresiem, 1975, Ostrůvky na zemi, 1977, Sgrafita, 1980, Masky a pevnůstky, 1985, Pražské zprávy, 1990 a Návraty Odysseovy, která získala cenu Penne v roce 1997. Sbírka esejů, Italská kultura na prahu 21. století, vyšla v roce 1995. V současné době je kulturním atašé Velvyslanectví Italské republiky v Praze a ředitelem Italského kulturního institutu.
 
 
 19:00  Friday 24 April  Franz Kafka Centre  Staroměstské nám. 22, Praha 1 
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