The listed books will be analyzed in class (reading samples only). The final exam will focus on four texts chosen by the student.
1) Plutarco, Vite parallele. Alessandro e Cesare, secolo II d.C. (in any good Italian translation)
2) San Bonaventura, Vita di san Francesco. Legenda maior 1260-1266 (in any good Italian translation)
3) John Aubrey, Vite brevi di uomini eminenti 1680-1693 (transl. by J. Rodolfo Wilcock, Adelphi, 2015)
4) Marcel Schwob, Vite immaginarie (in any good Italian translation)
6) Virginia Woolf, Orlando, 1928 (in any good Italian translation)
7) Vladimir Nabokov, La vera vita di Sebastian Knight, 1941 (in any good Italian translation)
8) Roberto Bolaño, La letteratura nazista in America, 1996 (in any good Italian translation)
9) Jean Echenoz, Ravel, 2006 (in any good Italian translation)

A reading of the following critical essays is also required:
1) Riccardo Castellana, Finzioni biografiche. Teoria e storia di un genere ibrido, Carocci, Roma 2019
2) Lorenzo Marchese, Compimento e deriva. Una definizione del rapporto fra short story e biografia nella narrativa contemporanea, in «Nuova corrente», vol. 162, 2018, pp. 17-34
3) Francesco De Cristofaro (a cura di), Letterature comparate, Carocci, 2020 (new edition)

Further bibliography will be given in class or uploaded on the teacher’s personal page.