Tiziano Terzani — Wikipedia

Tiziano Terzani (born the September 14, 1938 In Florence – Death on July 28, 2004 in Orsigna, a fraction from the city of Pistoia) is a contemporary Italian writer and journalist.

He was one of the most influential Italian journalists in German magazine The mirror . He tells the story of his life to his son in his book entitled The end is my beginning ( The end is my beginning ), which has been the subject of an adaptation to the cinema under the title The great journey of life in 2010.

The first trips [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Terzani was born in a popular district of Florence. While he first thinks of becoming a mechanic, his master convinces his parents to let him pursue studies; He will study the law at the University of Pisa, with the idea of ​​defending the poor against the rich. He later entered the Collegio Medico-Gioricido, one of the sections of the École normale supérieure de Pisa. In 1961, it emerged from a doctorate in law, obtained with the congratulations of the jury. He leaves in the company of Angela Staude, daughter of a German painter whom he met at 17, for the University of Leeds, but both are forced to return following the girl’s health problems .

In 1962, he joined Olivetti and wife Angela. The journey that led him to Japan in 1965 as a trainer is his first contact with Asia. His work allows him to travel in particular to Denmark, Portugal, Frankfurt or even Holland. However, a career at Olivetti, a paternalistic company in which a brilliant future is promised to him hardly enthusiasm. It is fascinated by the events that mark Asia: Gandhi India and especially Mao China.
Back from South Africa where he had been sent, he chose to tell his vision of apartheid upon his return to Italy in the astrolabe , a left -wing weekly. His article raises many reactions, to that of the South African Embassy in Rome, but was a great success.

The unexpected speech that Tiziano Terzani held in 1966 before young European managers, at the University of Bologna, where we were talking about Vietnam, does not allow a priori to guess the move he will make with his wife in the States- United. Indeed, his approach is rather that of an anti-American and the man who asks him why such a position, he answers: “No doubt because I don’t know America. I’ve never been there ” . This answer allows him to obtain a two -year scholarship at Columbia University, where he studies the culture of China and his language.

The beginnings of the writer journalist [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

1968 is the year of many changes worldwide. We see it through the articles that Tiziano Terzani writes on America, the elections, the blacks, the protest movement against the Vietnam War, La Marche on Washington and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, etc. He remains regular editor for astrolabio to whom he sends an article per week and also does internships at New York Times .
Tiziano Terzani obtained his master’s degree in international relations in 1969 and, with his wife, he decided to return to Italy with their first child, Folco. For eighteen months, he remains in an intern in a daily life Il Giorno before looking in many editors a position as a correspondent in Asia, part of the world that always fascinates him. THE Spiegel , for whom he will work for more than thirty years, finally offers him this opportunity.

From Vietnam to India [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

In December 1971 , he left for Singapore, later joined by his wife and their two children. He then discovered all the episodes of the Vietnam War, in Saigon but also in the whole Indochina. This situation will inspire two pounds to him: Leopard skin. Vietnamese diary of a war correspondent 1972-1973 and later Giai Phong! Saigon’s liberation. He expressed his enthusiasm with regard to independence, an attitude for which he will experience lively guilt later. A system of repression is indeed established shortly after the country’s pacification.

He is one of the few journalists to come out living in 1975 of the taking of Pnom Penh by the Red Khmers of Pol Pot and decided to go to Hong Kong, where he ardently continues to study China without being able to enter it. It was in 1979 that his wish was finally granted since he was part of the first group of journalists authorized to enter it. There, his children are educated in Chinese schools, his wife and do everything to integrate into the population so as not to stand out by the authorities.
Two years later, he decided to tell in Holocaust in Cambodia The story of his trip to Cambodia, during which he discovered the extent of the damage caused.

Things are inevitably spoiled as a result of positions and without eyeshadows that can only displease China. Tiziano Terzani is arrested in February 1984 , his requisitioned apartment and his wife revolt ^{[What ?]} . The latter, just back to Hong Kong, manages to put pressure on the embassies to obtain the release of her husband, but also her expulsion. Returning to Hamburg, he published a severe, biased and incredible article for the West in The mirror , with whom the collaboration then borders on the break. The wonders of China and its culture, tarnished by the contradictions of the Maoist socialist system are the subject of the book written the same year and which is entitled The forbidden door ^{[ 3 ]} .

In 1985, he chose to settle with his family in Japan, where he stayed five years. His life there is nevertheless marked by a certain depression, caused by a society, which, even if efficient and regulated, prefers economy to its ancestral culture. The latter was what attracted Tiziano Terzani, precisely fascinated by this humanity and this sharing of values. The country therefore stands out from China, in which the journalist felt fulfilled, where “everything is large, the wall, the dimensions, the tragedy, the famines and the assassins, but also the spirit of men and culture! »»

In August 1991 , the anti-Gorbatchev putsch bursts in Moscow, but it does not feel the need to come and attend the event in the capital itself. On the contrary, he decides to browse Siberia for several months, in search of testimonies, of which he will help himself to write his book Buanotte, signor Lenin in 1992.

Then he undertakes for a year a trip that reconciles him with the Asian continent, with his beauties, his stories, his culture. For a year, he avoids taking the plane, remembering the prediction of a soothsayer during his first trip to Hong Kong: “In 1993, you run the risk of dying. That year, do not fly, never take the plane. »» . And while the newspaper The mirror continues to support him, he moves away a little more from journalism by writing A riddle told me (“A soothsayer told me”), in which he tells the story of his fabulous journey. It was at the end of the latter that he was introduced, in Thailand, to the meditation that teaches him … a former CIA agent. Without claiming to become an expert but only an initiate, this silence learning shakes up his vision of life and his philosophy.

In 1994, when Delhi’s position was released, Tiziano Terzani saw it as a great opportunity for him to discover India, which he has dreamed since he discovered Gandhi. The mirror , who seeks above all that we speak of modernization of the country or for example of the emergence of Indian IT experts, is quite disappointed with the way in which man reveals the Indian daily. Tiziano Terzani also discovers “The thread of life” .

In front of cancer [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

In 1997, cancer was diagnosed. While being treated by American cancerologists, he withdrew into the Himalayas in housing without water or electricity ^{[ 4 ]} To indulge in meditation. His cancer experience will inspire him a book, Another carousel lap (“Another round of merry -go -round”). After the September 11, 2001 , he takes a position against Western intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq ( Letters against the war ) ^{[ 5 ]} . At the end of his life, he wrote in collaboration with his Folco son a book assessment on his life, The end is my beginning (« The end is my beginning »).

A Terzani prize was created in his memory. Since 2004, he has rewarded the author of a work that deals with intercultural relations, in particular between East and West ^{[ 4 ]} .

Original in Italian [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• Leopard skin. Vietnamese diary of a war correspondent 1972-1973 , 1973]
• Giai Phong! Saigon’s liberation , 1976
• The forbidden door , 1984
• Goodnight, Mr. Lenin , 1992
• A riddle told me , 1995
• In Asia , 1998
• Letters against the war , 2002
• Another carousel lap , 2004
• The end is my beginning , 2006
• Ghosts , 2008

French translated [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• The fall of Saigon: April 30, 1975 [«Giai Phong! The liberation of Saigon »], Fayard, 1977 , 367 p. (ISBN  978-2-213-00462-4 )
• A soothsayer said to me: travel to Asia [“A riddle told me»], Maisonneuve & Larose, 1997 , 499 p. (ISBN  978-2-7068-1249-1 ) ; reissue Éditions Interval, 2010, 459 p., (ISBN  978-2916355412 )
• Letters against war [«Letters against the war»], Liana Levi, 2002 , 184 p. (ISBN  978-2-86746-308-2 )
• The end is my beginning: a father tells his son the great journey of his life [« The end is my beginning »] ( trad. of the Italian), Paris, the arenas, 2008 , 492 p. (ISBN  978-2-35204-064-4 , Online presentation ) ; Poche Point edition, 2010, 536 p., (ISBN  978-2757816271 )
• Another merry -go -round ( trad. of the Italian), Paris, intervals, 2015 , 523 p. (ISBN  978-2-36956-015-9 )