003 Tommaso Landolfi

This episode examines the life and work of Tommaso Landolfi, one of the most unusual and underread writers of twentieth-century Italian literature.Born into a declining aristocratic family and later known for his compulsive gambling, isolation and obsessive relationship with language, Landolfi produced fiction that combined gothic horror, surrealism, black humor, metaphysical unease, and extreme linguistic experimentation. Admired by writers such as Italo Calvino and Susan Sontag, his work has often been compared to Kafka, Borges, Poe and Gogol while remaining distinctly his own.The episode discusses Landolfi’s life, literary style and recurring themes alongside major works including Gogol’s Wife, The Two Spinsters, Racconto d’autunno, Cancroregina, La pietra lunare and La Muta. It also explores his fascination with chance, decay, erotic obsession, artificiality, religion and the instability of meaning itself.Additional discussion includes the tradition of Italian weird literature, Landolfi’s influence on later writers such as Giorgio Manganelli and Michele Mari and Justin’s own discovery of Landolfi after moving to Naples and studying Italian literature and language.For listeners interested in surrealism, weird fiction, gothic literature, philosophical horror and twentieth-century European writing in general, Landolfi remains an essential and singular figure.