December 2017, Year IX, n. 12
Valerio Massimo Manfredi
A contemporary Odysseus. My name is Valerio Massimo
Telos: History is memory. A memory that historians try to render as objectively and truthfully as possible by studying documents. How do you interpret your role as a historian who is also a writer?
Valerio Massimo Manfredi: They are two different professions, but not dogmatically so. Historical texts also have narrative and theatrical passages (for example the speeches by the Melians and Athenians during the Peloponnesian War narrated by Thucydides). Likewise, literary texts can have extremely accurate and very effective historical reconstructions (Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, The Betrothed by Manzoni, I, Claudius by Robert Graves) or may even precede professional historians in their anticipation or rehabilitation of historical figures. Personally, I’m not a role player, I’m only the author of different kinds of literary genres that can be judged by those who read them, not by those who write them. ...more
Editorial
For Primo Piano Scala c, 2017 could be considered the year of the Manfredi interviews. We interviewed two. The second, our guest in this last issue, is internationally famous. He is one of the best writers and interpreters of historical novels, a scholar who has coupled his pet topic, archaeology, with his passion for history, using them as a source of inspiration for his wonderful, extremely captivating narratives. Apart from the above, Valerio Massimo Manfredi is also a university professor, journalist and television showman. But he is also, and above all, enchanting. ...more
SocialTelos