Elémire Zolla
Elémire Zolla was an Italian author and scholar born on July 9, 1926, in Turin, Italy. He grew up in a culturally rich environment, traveling extensively between London and Paris and becoming fluent in multiple languages. Zolla's early exposure to art, music, and literature greatly influenced his intellectual pursuits, leading him to explore themes of myth, religion, and the occult, particularly during his formative years in Turin. Despite identifying as an agonistic, he engaged deeply with beliefs and their impacts, which is evident in his first novel, "Minuetto all'inferno," where he presents a dialogue between God and Satan.
Zolla was also a prominent academic, teaching literature at various universities and leading institutions focused on foreign languages. His writings included philosophical critiques of modern culture, with notable works discussing the consequences of progress on indigenous communities. Zolla's interests spanned a wide array of topics, including alchemy and Gnosticism, and he made significant contributions to understanding historical processes through archetypes. He lived with poet Cristina Campo until her death in 1978, after which he continued to advocate for philosophical alternatives to contemporary moral challenges. Zolla spent his final years in Montepulciano, where he passed away in 2002.
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Elémire Zolla
Writer
- Born: July 9, 1926
- Birthplace: Turin, Italy
- Died: 2002
- Place of death: Montepulciano, Italy
Biography
Elémire Zolla was born July 9, 1926, in Turin, Italy, the son of Venanzio Zolla, an Italian painter born in England, and Blanche Smith Zolla, an English pianist. Zolla spent his first ten years traveling between London and Paris and grew up speaking English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. He later added other languages, such as Russian. This exposure to the international world of artists inspired his interest in art, music, and literature, as well as travel. Living in Turin from 1934 to 1957, Zolla became interested in Satanism and the occult, for which the city was famous, and was inspired to study myths and religions.
Although an agonistic, Zolla believed in the power of belief. His first novel, Minuetto all’inferno (1956), features a debate between God and Satan. Both of his novels address the nature of reality. In addition to his fiction, Zolla, who received a law degree from the University of Turin in 1954, published philosophical and critical works in which he examined modern culture, including L’Éclipse de L’intellectuel (1968; the eclipse of the intellectual). He examined how a misconceived idea of progress led to the destruction of Native American culture in I Letterati e lo sciamano (1968; The Writer and the Shaman: Morphology of the American Indian, 1973). Zolla taught English, American, and comparative literature at the University of Rome and the University of Genoa, where he was director of the Institute of Foreign Languages and Literatures from 1970 to 1974. He also directed the Ticinese Institute for Advanced Studies in Lugano, Switzerland (1969- 1973).
Zolla’s reputation comes primarily from the wide-ranging nature of his interests, writing about such subjects as alchemy, Gnosticism, and syncretism. As much a historian as a philosopher, Zolla explained how archetypes unify historical processes. Though he wrote primarily in Italian, Zolla also published articles in English, French, German, and Spanish. He also translated works by such writers as Herman Melville and the Marquis de Sade.
Beginning in 1957, Zolla lived with the poet Cristina Campo, and the couple traveled extensively, especially in Asia and North America, until her death in 1978. In the 1990’s, Zolla became spokesman for a new philosophy seeking alternatives to the moral decline of Western civilization. Zolla lived his last years in Montepulciano, in the Tuscan countryside. He died there in 2002.