On the occasion of the English publication of Alain Elkann’s latest novel Anita by Bordighera Press, the author will be in conversation with Harriet Agnew (Paris Correspondent, The Financial Times), Enrico Palandri (Professor of Modern European Literature, UCL), Etta De Benedetti Carnelli, and the book’s translator K.E. von Wittelsbach (Senior Lecturer, Department of Romance Studies / Jewish Studies Program, Cornell University). Chaired by ICI London’s Director Katia Pizzi.
“My name is Milan because my mother adored books by Milan Kundera. But since her brother, named Misha, had been killed in a concentration camp, my mother always called me Misha and that is how I became Misha for everyone. My name can be written in many different ways, depending on the language. I prefer to write it as Misha.” So begins Alain Elkann’s tale of love and loss, but above all about loss.
Alain Elkann has written several books of short stories, non fiction and interviews with, among others, Chief Rabbi of Rome Elio Toaff, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, Alberto Moravia, Michelangelo Pistoletto. He has been a counsellor to the Italian cultural ministry, and the Chairman of the Egyptian Museum in Turin. Awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French Republic, Elkann presently serves as President of the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture in New York and is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is on the board of the Italian Academy of Columbia University.
Harriet Agnew is Asset Management Editor at The Financial Times, where she also worked as a news editor on the companies desk and Paris Correspondent since joining the publication in 2014. Before that, she covered hedge funds at Financial News and at Euromoney Institutional Investor.
Enrico Palandri is an Italian academic, writer, essayist, poet and translator. Professor of Modern European Literature at UCL, he has written several novels, many of which were reworked into as single narrative in the volume Le condizioni armosferiche (2020) as well as essays of a theoretical nature on language and literature.
Etta De Benedetti Carnelli has taught English Literature and Comparative Literature in Milan’s secondary schools. She moved to Tokyo and Toronto before coming back to Europe to teach at the University of East London. She has worked extensively as an editor of narrative fiction and non-fiction.
K.E. von Wittelsbach teaches in the Department of Romance Studies and Jewish Studies Program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She is also the Director of the Luigi Einaudi Summer Program in Government at the Einaudi Foundation in Turin, Italy.
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