External links
- Official website
- Profile on Poets and Writers
- His blog at the Times of Israel
- Profile on www.authorsden.com
- Profile on www.viewbug.com
- Profile on www.artavita.com
- Profile on Twitter
- Profile on Facebook
Albert Russo | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 February 1943 |
| Occupations | Short story writer, novelist, poet, photographer |
Albert Russo (born 26 February 1943) was a Belgian bilingual (English and French) author of novels, short stories, essays and poems, as well as a photographer. His main themes are fighting racism of all stripes and defending individual and collective rights, including ethnic, religious and gender rights.
Son of an Italian Sephardic father, born in Rhodes, and of a British mother who grew up in Rhodesia, he lived with his family in Congo, Ruanda-Urundi, Rhodesia and travelled to South Africa during his 17 years. After graduating from high school in Bujumbura, at the Athénée Interracial, learning four languages, French, English, Dutch and German, with a knowledge of vernacular Swahili, he pursues his studies at New York University, getting a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, in 1964, minoring in psychology and economics. This is when he started writing his poems in English. In 1965, he spent a year in Heidelberg and obtained a degree in German culture and literature at Collegium Palatinum. That same year, he settled in Milan (Italy), where he continued to write while working with his father in the family import-export firm.
His first novel, La Pointe du Diable, written in French and dealing with apartheid, was published in Brussels, (Belgium) in 1973, and the following year he won both the Prix Colette in Cannes (France) and the Prix de la Liberté in Paris. In 1975, he went back to New York, where he taught languages to adults; meanwhile, he pursued his writing mainly in English and published poems and short stories, contributing, both as writer and translator, to various magazines, such as Confrontation, The Literary Review, The Poet, Atlas World Review, and Philadelphia Poets. He also translates film scripts for children's documentaries at UNICEF. In 1978, he went back to Europe and decided to live in Paris.
Translated into a dozen languages, Albert Russo has written more than 25 works, including novels, books of short stories and of poetry. Africa is one of his major themes. Mixed Blood (published first by Domhan Books in New York, then by Imago Press in Arizona) garnered the Best Fiction Award in 1985 by Volcano Review in California. Both Mixed Blood and Eclipse over Lake Tanganyika were nominated for the 2001 e-books award at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. Among his other novels are Le Cap des Illusions (formerly entitled La Pointe du Diable) republished by Editions du Griot in Paris, France, his humorous Zapinette series (in both English and French), his large volume of short stories, fables and essays The Crowded World of Solitude, vol 1, started in New York in the late 1970s, as well as the bilingual books of poetry Futureyes, and the large volume of poems (40 years of writing) The Crowded World of Solitude, vol 2. He has also produced about 50 books of photography with and without poetic captions.
All his works, along with some manuscripts and literary letters by various authors, are to be found at the Archives and Museum of Belgian Literature in Brussels (Belgium). Mixed Blood has been the subject of the Capes degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris in the English department of literature. The Zapinette Vidéo series was also taught at the Catholic University of Paris to foreign students.
During the 1980s, having in common their Congolese experience, their love of and their interest for Africa, he befriends the Italian artist and philosopher Joseph Pace, founder in Paris of Filtranisme, a neo-existential philosophical and artistic current. In the 2000s he also befriended the poet, artist and photographer Adam Donaldson Powell, with whom he authored in 2009 Gaytude, a volume of poetry encompassing the gay experience on the five continents with photography by Albert Russo.
As a photographer, he has garnered several prizes in the US, especially from National Indie-Excellence (winner and finalist), photo pursuit (formerly photo challenge), Gallery Photografica (silver medal). Some of his photos have been exhibited at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne (Switzerland).
In 1996, he was a juror at the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which often leads to the Nobel Prize for Literature. Some of the Neustadt candidates, laureates or jurors having obtained the Nobel Prize are: Elias Canetti, Wole Soyinka, José Saramago, Nadine Gordimer, Eugenio Montale, Claude Simon.
Albert Russo has had seven books translated into Italian, L'Amante di mio padre (2001), Sangue Misto (2008), Shalom Tower Syndrome (2008), Sotto il Picco de Diavolo (2012), Io, Hans, figlio di nazisti (2013) and Zapinette a Parigi (2013).
A bilingual writer, he freely discusses topics such as anti-racism, individual and collective freedoms, and LGBT freedoms.
2019 UNICEF Award for the body of his poetry
2020 Artavita certificate of excellence for his photos
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