Brief autobiography Archive
21 Apr 2012
The twilight
For many years I sacrificed to my studies my emotional life, my family life, participation in the life of my generation: although I lived in my time, in some ways I didn’t belong to that time. I hardly knew anything about sport, music, songwriters, dancing, the fashions which young people followed, holidays and much else.
20 Apr 2012
The Righteous
More than once I turned down the opportunity of fortune or, let’s say, a certain financial security. Here are three examples. The first was with Paris Vision. The owner, Mr. Georges, if I remember his name correctly, offered me a career in the company. With a little determination and my knowledge of languages I knew
16 Apr 2012
The nightmare
Everyone has his borderline experiences. I had had one of these in Paris a few years before I started working as a tourist guide for Paris Vision. My existential angst, which I had long been keeping under control by sheer will power, suddenly exploded. Then a nauseating, gloomy, intolerable vision of life took hold of
13 Apr 2012
The dream
At the beginning of the Seventies, I began to give French and Italian lessons to small groups of students in private schools – International School of Languages, Holmes Language School, Berlitz Language school in Melbourne. I would have liked to have had a deeper, more academic knowledge of these languages but what I did have
14 Mar 2012
The cost
Today I am in possession of three diplomas, two from universities and one from a college: one I obtained in Australia, at the Holmes College of Melbourne, one in Spain, from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and one in Italy from the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. I have no idea what they are worth.
13 Mar 2012
The leap
When I was sixteen, resolute in the face of my mother’s objections, I went away, leaving my family, my animals, the place where I was born, and I set off for northern Italy. In Turin I slept in cold, dark, wretched garages, with snow on the roof and water dripping inside. Sometimes I lived