D'Alfonso, Antonio 1953-

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D'ALFONSO, Antonio 1953-

PERSONAL: Born August 6, 1953, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; son of Carlo (a welder) and Emilia (Salvatore) D'Alfonso; married second wife, Emilia Chiocca (a teacher), October 11, 1995; children: Elisa. Education: Loyola College, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, B.A., 1975; University of Montreal, M.Sc., 1979.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Guernica Editions, Box 117, Station P, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2S6, Canada. E-mail— [email protected] or 102036.1331@ compuserve.com.

CAREER: Filmmaker and writer, 1974—; Guernica Editions, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, founder and editor, beginning 1978. Vice Versa magazine, cofounder,c. 1982. Presenter of conferences on literature, film, and multiculturalism.

MEMBER: Association of Canadian Publishers, Writers Union of Canada, League of Canadian Poets, Association of Italian-Canadian Writers (cofounder, 1986), Syndicat National du Cinema, Association des Editeurs, Union des écrivains québécois.

WRITINGS:

La chanson du shaman à Sedna (poetry; title means "Shaman's Song to Sedna"), privately printed, 1973.

L'ampoule brulee (screenplay), 1973

La coupe de Circe (screenplay), 1974.

Queror (poetry; title means "To Sing, to Cry, to Lament"), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1979.

Pour t'aimer (screenplay), 1982.

Black Tongue (poetry), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

(Editor, with Fulvio Caccia, and contributor) Quêtes:Textes d'auteurs italo-québécois, Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

(Editor) Voix-off: dix poètes Anglophones du Québec, Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1985.

(Translator) Philippe Haeck, The Clarity of Voices (prose poetry), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1985.

The Other Shore (prose and poetry), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1986.

L'Autre Rivage, VLB Éditeur (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1987.

L'amour panique (prose poetry), Levres Urbaines, 1988, published as Panick Love, Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1992.

Avril ou L'anti-passion (novel), VLB Éditeur (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1990.

Lettre à Julia (long prose poem), L'Éditions du Silence, 1992.

Fabrizio's Passion (novel), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

In Italics: A Defense of Ethnicity (essays), Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

L'apostrophe qui me scinde, Editions du Noroît (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1998.

(With Pasquale Verdicchio) Duologue: On Culture andIdentity, Guernica Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

(Translator) Pasquale Verdicchio, La paysage qui bouge, Le Norôit (Quebec, Canada), 2000.

Comment ça se passe, Editions du Noroît (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 2001.

Other screenplays include "The Minotaur" and "Antigone." Work represented in anthologies, including Cross/Cut, Véhicule Press (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1982; Italian Canadian Voices, edited by Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni, Mosaic Press (Oakville, Ontario, Canada), 1984; Quebec Kaleidoscope, Paje editeur, 1991; The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, 2nd edition, edited by Eugene Benson and William Toye, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1997; and Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing about Learning to Be American, edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan, Penguin (New York, NY), 1999. Contributor to magazines, including Canadian Forum, Nos Livres, and Poetry Canada Review.

Some of D'Alfonso's works have been translated to other languages.

SIDELIGHTS: Antonio D'Alfonso once told CA: "Writing is my way of remembering what is come of me—be it in the form of a poem, a prose poem, an essay, an interview, a letter, or a film. Language is important, yet today I have come to believe that it is itself the worst of prisons. To be able to free myself I have to write in another language. I have written mostly in Italian, French, and English. Film, however, is what enables me to capture at once the social and private aspects of me. Writing is a selfish act of socialization: I have to express my being and fit this being into the historical patchwork of which I am temporarily part. But it is film—whenever I can make one—that allows me to immediately speak to the illiterate people I have grown up with. I speak of illiteracy in a symbolic manner: few are those who read and write around me, no matter from which class they come or belong to. Our world is one of images and we must try to use these to fit our needs and desires."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Books in Canada, November, 1979, review of Queror,p. 28; December, 1986, review of The Other Shore, p. 22; summer, 1993, review of Panick Love, p. 38; November, 1995, review of Fabrizio's Passion, p. 36.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1996, review of Fabrizio's Passion, p. 158; 1997, review of In Italics: A Defense of Ethnicity, p. 368; 1998, review of Duologue: On Culture and Identity, p. 264.

Canadian Literature, summer, 1991, Andre Lamontagne, review of L'Autre Rivage, p. 230.

Translation Review Supplement, December, 2000, review of Fabrizio's Passion, p. 7.

University of Toronto Quarterly, winter, 1997, Joseph Pivato, review of In Italics, p. 154; winter, 1999, Anthony Julian Tamburri, review of Duologue, p. 305.