The Italian writer Sebastiano Vassalli, who has died aged 73, had a conflicted relationship with the world around him, distancing himself from it, yet obsessively chronicling and narrating it. He lived a solitary life, in an old parish house in the middle of rice fields in the Po valley outside Novara, between Milan and Turin. From this isolation, he typed feverishly on an old Olivetti typewriter – eschewing all newer forms of technology – sending off regular columns to Il Corriere della Sera and publishing, on average, a new book every year, among them more than 20novels. His new novel, Io, Partenope (I, Partenope), is due out later this year.
Vassalli was a polemical voice, always ready to point out the dysfunctional nature of Italian society and to attack its sacred cows. His contrary nature kept him at a distance from the literary scene – he refused most literary prizes since he judged their selection processes to be mafia-like – and inspired the direction of much of his work.
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