Attilio Bertolucci won the Montale Prize in 1989, and in 1992 the most prestigious of all Italian prizes, that of the Accademia dei Lincei. His bilingual Selected Poems appeared from Bloodaxe in 1993. Born in 1911, Attilio Bertolucci published his first book of poems at the age of 18. His second, published in 1934, was recognised and favourably reviewed by Eugenio Montale. There followed a period of silence, broken in 1951 by The Indian Wigwam, which won the Viareggio Prize. He published two other books in the early 50s, but no more poetry until Winter Journey in 1971, his most boldly experimental as well as his most mature book. He also published two bestselling volumes of a novel in verse, La camera da letto, a kind of family history about his parents and childhood, and his love for Ninetta, the mother of Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci, his two film-director sons. Bloodaxe published his Selected Poems, translated by Charles Tomlinson, in 1993. He died in 2000.
