Amelia Rosselli (28 March 1930 – 11 February 1996) was an Italian poet, musician, and musicologist close to John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Family Life

Rosselli was the daughter of Marion Catherine Cave, an English political activist, and Carlo Rosselli, a hero of the Italian anti-Fascist Resistance—founder, with his brother Nello, of the liberal socialist movement Justice and Liberty. He and his brother were assassinated by La Cagoule, secret services of the Fascist regime, while the extended family was living in exile in France in 1937. The family then moved between England and the United States, where Rosselli was educated. She continued to speak Italian with her grandmother, Amelia Pincherle Rosselli, a Venetian Jewish feminist, playwright, and translator from a family prominent in the Italian Risorgimento, the movement for independence. Rosselli returned to Italy in 1949, eventually settling in Rome. She committed suicide in 1996 by jumping from her fifth floor apartment near Rome's Piazza Navona.

Intellectual Interests

Rosselli spent her life studying music composition and ethnomusicology and by taking part in the cultural life of postwar Italy, mostly as a poet and literary translator. Her extraordinary, highly experimental literature-output includes verse and poetic prose in English and French, as well as Italian. Her original poetic output is deeply influenced by the French Surrealism tradition.

Translations

Rosselli has been translated into English by Lucia Re, Jennifer Scappettone, Gian Maria Annovi, Diana Thow, Deborah Woodard, Paul Vangelisti, and Cristina Viti.

Poetry collections in English

Poetry collections in Italian

Selected poetry originally written in English or Italian

Creative prose

Critical writings