April 25th is an important date in Italy: in 1945, it marked the end of World War II and freedom from fascism. But in 1911 - 110 years ago today - it was also the day one of Italy's most influential writers died. Emilio Salgari was an author of bestsellers but, exploited by publishers and overcome by financial problems, he killed himself with a razor blade.
In spite of his personal tragedy. many of his works have been in print ever since; some of them were later turned into films, comics and tv series. Translated into other languages - Spanish, for instance - they had a strong impact even on the political side: Ernesto "Che" Guevara read Salgari and learnt from him.
But most of all, for Italian readers, Salgari was a household tradition all over the 20th century: although his books were not conceived either as children's or young adults' literature, they were passed fron generation to generation, to boys and girls alike - with no censorship even during the fascist regime - and were usually the first novels we read, out first approach to literature and, even if the word was still unknown to us, to "pulp".
Born in Verona on August 21, 1862, Emilio Salgari started writing at an early age. At 20 he publishd on newspapers and weekly magazines his first serialized novels, later re-edited as proper books. Their locations were mostly foreign, exotic countries, often in contemporary war or guerrilla settings. Salgari let his readers believe he had been sailing world-wide and had first-hand knowledge of the places he described.
In fact he only lived in Verona, Venice, Genova and Turin and never left Italy. But he spent a lot of time in local public libraries studying newspapers and books, so much that he could describe faraway places in vivid details. He often wrote about turmoils in what would later be called the Third World from an indigenous, anti-colonialistic point of view. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Mexican novelist of the so called neo-aventura and biographer of Che Guevara, once said "I learnt more about anti-imperialism from Salgari than from the Che". Authors like Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Madrid or Gabriel Garcia Marquez have declared themselves Salgari readers.
Between 1882 and 1911 the Italian writer published dozens of novels, many of them featuring Sandokan, by birth a Malaysian prince, who becomes a pirate to fight colonialism along with Portuguese adventurer Yanez de Gomera; while Sandokan is always ready for action and battle, Yanez is more keen to light himself a cigarette and rationally consider the situation. Another famous saga follows the family of the Black Corsair, an Italian count who becomes a Tortuga corsair seeking a personal revenge. Salgari wrote more historical and contemporary adventure books, including western novels, long before spaghetti western.
He was somehow considered a rival of French author Jules Verne and that might be the reason why, among Salgari's standalone books, there is also one science-fiction novel: in Le meraviglie del 2000 ("The Wonders of 2000") a rich American, disiillusioned about his time, decides to go into hibernation and wakes up in 2003 to see how the world has changed. In the novel you can even read about something like a flat-screen smart-tv with an Internet connection. The book was originally published in 1907 under the pen name Guido Altieri (while years later a real Altieri, Sergio D. known as Alan D. Altieri, would become one of the masters of Italian science-fiction).
Salgari's success was also his curse. His three-books-per-year contract meant a lot of research work (and Internet didn't really exist at the time). He was a goldmine for his publishers but not so much for himself, since he had to support a wife - actress Ida Peruzzi, who fell ill in 1903 and would die in a mental institution in 1922 - and four children. Depression, wine, hard work and cigarettes were his only company, until he chose the same way out his father had taken years before: suicide. In one of his farewell letters he announced he was "breaking his pen" and accused his publishers of exploiting him.
If so it was, his death didn't stop it. Some novels were published posthumously, other books were completed by his son Omar and a few more continuation novels were written by writers Emilio Fancelli and Luigi Motta. Even the line of tragedies went on with Salgari's daughter Fatima, who died of tuberculosis in 1914, and his sons: Nadir died in a motorbike accident in 1936, while the other two, Romero and Omar, both killed themselves in 1931 and 1963.
Nevertheless, Salgari was still the bestselling Italian author at least well into the 1970's. The first movies officially based on his books - from the Black Corsair saga - were made one century ago, in 1921; many more were filmed, including three by director Umberto Lenzi in the 60's. In 1976 the tv series Sandokan directed by Sergio Sollima and starring Kabir Bedi led to a Salgari revival and to more films and tv sequels, one of them by Enzo G. Castellari in 1996. Moreover, the adjective salgariano still describes a certain kind of pulp-style adventure novel. The writer's influence still hangs on in the works of Italian novelists and comics authors.
Unluckily, Salgari is now one of the victims of the cultural "anti-pulp" phenomenon I already described in a previous post: parents no longer pass their Sandokan books to their children and nobody would teach about the Black Corsair in schools. So the new generations miss the entrance to a world of adventures... and books. Salgari didn't really die on April 25th, 1911, but we really need to keep him alive today.
Art by A. Della Valle
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