Short Fiction:
I sette messaggeri, 1942
Paura alla Scala, 1949
Il crollo della Baliverna, 1954
Esperimento di magia, 1958
Sessanta racconti, 1958
Egregio signore, siamo spiacenti di . . . , 1960
Catastrophe: The Strange Stories of Dino Buzzati, 1966
Il colombre e altri cinquanta racconti, 1966
La boutique del mistero, 1968
Le notti difficili, 1971
180 racconti, 1982
Restless Nights: Selected Stories of Dino Buzzati, 1983
The Siren: A Selection from Dino Buzzati, 1984
Il meglio dei racconti di Dino Buzzati, 1989
Lo Strano Natale di Mr. Scrooge altre storie, 1990
Bestiario, 1991
Long Fiction:
Bàrnabo delle montagne, 1933 (Bàrnabo of the Mountains, 1984)
Il segreto del Bosco Vecchio, 1935
Il deserto dei Tartari, 1940 (The Tartar Steppe, 1952)
Il grande ritratto, 1960 (Larger than Life, 1962)
Un amore, 1963 (A Love Affair, 1964)
Drama:
Piccola passeggiata, pr., pb. 1942
La rivolta contro i poveri, pr., pb. 1946
Un caso clinico, pr., pb. 1953
Drammatica fine di un noto musicista, pr., pb. 1955
L’orologio, pb. 1959
Procedura penale, pr., pb. 1959 (libretto; music by Luciano Chailly)
Il mantello, pr., pb. 1960 (libretto; music by Chailly)
Un verme al ministero, pr., pb. 1960
Battono alla porta, pr. 1961 (libretto; based on Riccardo Malpiero’s short story)
Era proibito, pr. 1962 (libretto; music by Chailly)
La colonna infame, pr., pb. 1962
L’uomo che andrà in America, pr., pb. 1962
Una ragazza arrivò, pb. 1968
La fine del borghese, pr., pb. 1968
Teatro, pb. 1980
Poetry:
Il capitano Pic ed altre poesie, 1965
Due poemetti, 1967
Poema a fumetti, 1969
Le Poesie, 1982
Nonfiction:
Cronache terrestri, 1972
Dino Buzzati al Giro d’Italia, 1981
Cronache nere, 1984
Lettere a Brambilla, 1985
Montagne di vetro: Articoli e racconti dal 1932 al 1971, 1989
Il buttafuoco: Cronache di guerra sul mar, 1992
Children’s/Young Adult Literature:
La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia, 1945 (The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily, 1947)
I dispiaceri del re, 1980
Miscellaneous:
Il libro delle pipe, 1945 (with Eppe Ramazzotti)
In quel preciso momento, 1950 (includes stories and autobiographical sketches)
I miracoli di Val Morel, 1971 (includes thirty-nine of Buzzati’s paintings with his text)
Romanzi e racconti, 1975
Per grazia ricevuta, 1983 (includes Buzzati’s art)
Il reggimento parte all’ alba, 1985
Opere scelte, 1998
Dino Buzzati (bew-DZAH-tee) was born Dino Buzzati Traverso at San Pellegrino, near Belluno, in the Dolomite Alps, where his family possessed a summerhouse. The mountains, to which he returned every summer, played an important part in his life (he became a passionate Alpine climber and skier) and influenced his narratives. He received all of his schooling, including a law degree, in Milan, where the Buzzati family resided even after the death, in 1920, of his father, Giulio Cesare Buzzati, a professor of international law. As a teenager, together with his friend Arturo Brambilla, Buzzati developed a passion for Egyptology and an intense interest in the designs of illustrator Arthur Rackham.
In 1928, Buzzati began a journalistic career for Corriere della Sera, the leading Italian newspaper, eventually becoming a chief editor. During World War II, he was a war correspondent with the Italian navy. Although he was only thirty-five years old, he feared that he was losing his youth and his strength, that he would no longer be able to climb his beloved mountains. Indeed, Buzzati would constantly measure his physical strength against the mountain: every year the Dolomites seemed to him to become taller and more difficult to climb, while he worried over the slightest difficulty and, like his characters, expected only catastrophes.
Buzzati was married late in life, at the age of sixty. His wife, Almerina Antoniazzi, became curator of his many papers, including sixty-three volumes of his diary, after he died of cancer in 1972.
Dino Buzzati’s works, often taking a surrealistic and metaphysical turn, can be compared to the fantasies of Franz Kafka; in fact, he has frequently been referred to by literary critics as “the Italian Kafka.” His closest affinity, however, is with the Romantic tradition of E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe. Through the themes and style of his short stories and novels–philosophical and symbolic tales of life’s relentless passing, full of metaphysical allegories and strange events–his work can be related to that of other Italian authors such as Tommaso Landolfi and Italo Calvino; the extremism and pessimism of his narratives, however, are uniquely his own. Buzzati’s characters, overwhelmed by cosmic fear, find themselves in a state of isolation and perpetual waiting. Buzzati’s pessimism, however, is somewhat tempered by a vague Christian element, the hope of ultimate redemption from evil through the exercise of free will. Since death is viewed as the only possible conclusion to life, humans’ ability to die with dignity constitutes the greatest heroic deed.
Some critics saw Buzzati’s existentialism as a snobbish and egotistic attitude. Indeed, Buzzati’s works are not easily appreciated by the unprepared reader, who may be puzzled by the strange, often hidden and allegoric meaning of his prose. At the same time, however, the stories are captivating. He manages to maintain a sense of continuous suspense, capturing readers’ attention yet leaving them perplexed.
Translated into several languages, Buzzati’s works became extremely popular in France, where a Buzzati society, Association Internationale des Amis de Dino Buzzati, was established in 1976. His masterpiece The Tartar Steppe influenced Julien Gracq’s novel Le Rivage des Syrtes (1951; the shore of the Syrtes) and resulted in a French-Italian coproduction of a film directed by Valerio Zurlini in 1976. The Tartar Steppe won the Italian Academy Award.
Buzzati received the Gargano Prize in 1951 for In quel preciso momento, the Naples Prize in 1957 for Il crollo della Baliverna, the Strega Prize in 1958 for Sessanta racconti, and the All’Amalia Prize in 1970 for his narrative works in general. He is considered to be one of the most important writers in modern Italy.