Andre Alexis

Trinidad/Canada | 2001

Andre Alexis was born in Trinidad in 1957 and grew up in Canada. He is the author of Childhood, a novel, and Despair, a collection of short stories. Andre Alexis lives in Toronto.

 

 

 

 

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Report 2001

It has been 5 months since I was at Santa Maddalena and I think of my time in Italy as marvelous.

It’s true Santa Maddalena is beautiful. It’s true Santa Maddalena was idyllic, and my time there was a gift. But perhaps most important, it is the place where I have worked best, writing almost 100 pages of my novel in a month and a half.

There are two encounters for which I am deeply grateful: Italy and Gregor von Rezzori.
I owe them both to you.

As you know, Italy figures in the novel I am writing. To have had this intimacy with the land, with Tuscany, has been inspiring and helpful. The words I write (now) are written in the presence of the land, or in its absence, which is almost as intense.

And then there is Gregor . . .
I read “memoirs” and was, well . . . bouleverse.
Thank you again, Beatrice.
And may Santa Maddalena live forever.