Pier Vittorio Tondelli

(1955-1991)

Pier Vittorio Tondelli is one of the most important and innovative Italian writers in contemporary fiction.
He was born in Correggio September 14, 1955 and grew up in a local middle-class family, in a provincial background which he himself describes as simple, daily and deeply rooted in Emilian life.
From a young age, he developed a keen interest in reading and attended the Correggio Municipal Library, where his literary imagination took shape.

He studied at the ‘Rinaldo Corso’ classical grammar school and played an active role in local cultural life, writing his first works and collaborating on youth and parish initiatives. He then enrolled at DAMS (Discipline delle Arti, della Musica e dello Spettacolo) in Bologna, where he got in touch with masters such as Umberto Eco and Gianni Celati, embarking on his career as a modern and experimental writer.

He made his literary debut in 1980 with Altri libertini, a work that immediately established him as a new voice in Italian fiction.
In his subsequent novels (Pao Pao, Rimini, Camere separate), he depicted the world of youth, provincial life, music and the social transformations of the 1980s, becoming a point of reference for an entire generation.
Although he lived between Bologna, Milan and the rest of Europe, Tondelli always maintained a strong connection to his roots in Correggio, which resurface in his writing and his imagination.
He died in Reggio Emilia in 1991 and was buried in the small cemetery of Canolo, a hamlet of Correggio, symbolically bringing him full circle to his native land.

Correggio now preserves his memory through the Pier Vittorio Tondelli Documentation Centre, cultural initiatives and literary trails that keep his legacy alive.