Eugenio Montale

Genoa, Italy

Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature. Montale wrote more than ten anthologies of short lyrics, a journal of poetry translation, plus several books of prose translations, two books of literary criticism, and one of fantasy prose. Alongside his imaginative work he was a constant contributor to Italy's most important newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, for which he wrote a huge number of articles on literature, music, and art. He also wrote a famed foreword to Dante's "Divine Comedy" and a celebratory essay entitled "Eliot and Ourselves" to mark the occasion of T.S. Eliot's sixtieth birthday.