a writer in new york

Elena A. Perazzini

Writing is

discovering what you had no clue you wanted to tell

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BIOGRAPHIES

Your life: a precious legacy to share

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We translate emotions, visions, ideas. Not only words.

 

About Me

“Writing is also the desire to experience more than one life, to play new roles, to know how to reinvent oneself in someone we do not yet know. Which I tried to do, from time to time, even in my life.” Elena interviewed by Matteo Marini 

Elena Perazzini was born in Rimini and has lived in Manhattan since 1997. Holding a master at the University of Bologna with a major in criminology, she worked at Rizzoli in New York as an assistant to Oriana Fallaci, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. She then worked as a producer for Rai International TV. 

Inspired by the extreme lives she encountered in the Big Apple and the experience of Italians who moved to the States, she told some of their stories in her books. 

She published novels, short story collections and mini-biographies, both in Italy and the United States. One of her books is now used as a curriculum in American colleges and universities, such as Bucknell University, Dickinson College, The New School University of New York.

Elena has experience in film writing and currently works on documentaries. She created her first documentary in 2018 produced by RAI Cinema and GVG New York. 

Before devoting herself full time to creative writing, she penetrated the soul of her adopted city through various work experiences. She wrote for theater, worked as an interpreter for the court, found herself being the press-office manager of an event company, and ran a restaurant-gallery in the East Village, a place that inspired her to write her first novel.

Elena Attala Perazzini

Far from us

Equilibrium publishing 2016

Far from Us exposes a culturally updated version of the American Dream as it traces the journeys of six Italians who chose to live, work, and put down their roots in the United States. The stories capture the tribulations of people from all walks of life. Some saw a departure as their only chance for a better future, and some, determined to not betray their talent, moves to reap the benefits in fields where Italians have historically excelled. 

 

Success and hardship, expectation and disappointment, opportunity and sacrifice weave through the stories, and all their contradictions. 

As the protagonists struggle to comprehend and adjust to the differences between the Italian and American cultures, they afford uncommon perspectives of their native Italy seen and analyzed from a distance.

Talented and ambitious, some of the protagonists choose the magnetic and limitless New York, like playwright Mario Fratti in the 60s, when he finds himself heir to a bad Italian reputation, and Ascanio in the 90s, an aspiring but naive businessman. Scientist Giovannella Moscovici, who moves to the U.S in the 50s, participates to important discoveries of the Nineteenth century, after struggling against discrimination as a woman. In the 2000, Alessandra Luchini, awarded as the youngest researcher for an important discovery, experiences the isolation of the scientific centers of Virginia, while her career kept evolving into something unexpected. Chef Gino Angelini gets a job opportunity in the suburban Los Angeles where he’ll never truly settle in, but once he’s determined to leave, faith forces him to stay and become one of the most successful chef in America. Angela B. escapes from a town on a Lombardy lake to San Francisco to explore her sexual identity, but decides to go back to her life where an unexpected conclusion awaits her. Then, without big dreams or expectations, some people choose America because they are fed up with an Italy that never evolves.

Elena Attala Perazzini

The Writer’s Assistant

Equilibrium publishing 2017

A young Italian woman who has just moved to New York entwines her story with the intimate and secret life of one of the greatest writers of the Nineteenth century, Oriana Fallaci.

The city is a stage to colorful ways of surviving, unexpected encounters as well as intimidatory luxury, while the book narrates the cruel and marvelous months that the protagonist spent next to this internationally acclaimed and controversial “pen”of journalism.

The Writer’s Assistant is an intense novel about the fragility of life and the unexpected reversals of success. It’s a tender and inedited tribute to the humanity of intimidating Oriana Fallaci.

The protagonist of this novel is a young, brilliant and determined woman who has left Italy to live in New York where her fiancé and, hopefully, a new life is awaiting for her. The Big Apple welcomes her with all its liveliness, but behind the art scene, the new eateries to explore, and the sparkling lights, she discovers that life in the huge American metropolis is not what she had dreamed of, growing up in a small Italian town. It’s not easy to find a stimulating job, even more difficult to rent a decent apartment and, never enough, her fiancé is forced to live with another woman because of papers.

Her entire life will be completely upset by the encounter with Oriana Fallaci who offers her a job and opens up, only for a few months, her house and her soul’s doors. Things suddenly gets complicated, though, and the young woman find herself alone and jobless.

The whole experience turns out to be hard, illuminating, but formative. An occasion to evolve and to get close to the life and mind of a special, famously unreachable celebrity, that will compel her to re-consider her and the famous writer’s life choices.

Elena Attala Perazzini

Via da Noi

Barbera Editore 2013

Successi e abbagli di nuovi italiani che hanno scelto l’America, riscoprendo la forza seducente di un rivisitato American Dream. Un libro di sfide e trionfi, che non risparmia crudezza e nostalgie di una scelta coraggiosa, che rivela le contraddizioni di vivere divisi tra due culture. Uno spaccato capace di ritrarre le decadi recenti di un esodo lento e inarrestabile.

 

Tra i protagonisti, c’è chi sceglie la New York magnetica e senza limiti, come il drammaturgo Mario Fratti, negli anni ’60,  che si ritroverà erede di una brutta reputazione italiana,  e l’aspirante imprenditore negli anni ’90, al quale andrà tutto storto. C’è chi finisce nella suburbana Los Angeles, come Gino Angelini, nella quale non si ambienterà mai, per diventare poi uno degli chef più famosi d’America. C’è chi parteciperà alle scoperte scientifiche che cambieranno il novecento, come Giovannella Moscovici, che negli anni ’50 dovrà lottare duro per non essere discriminata, in quanto donna. C’è chi sperimenta l’isolamento dei centri scientifici della Virginia, come Alessandra Luchini, dopo esser stata premiata come la più giovane ricercatrice al mondo per l’importanza della sua scoperta. E c’è anche chi cerca una nuova identità nella San Francisco aperta e anticonformista. O semplicemente, c’è chi sceglie l’America perché è stufo di un’Italia che non cambia mai. 

RECENSIONI

Edizione copertina rigida

Edizione tascabile

Elena Attala Perazzini

La segretaria dello scrittore

Barbera editore 2011

Ristampa

 

I miei giorni con Oriana Fallaci

Barney editore 2014

Una giovane italiana appena trasferita a New York intreccia la propria vita con quella più intima e segreta della grande giornalista e scrittrice, Oriana Fallaci. I mesi crudeli e meravigliosi che la protagonista vivrà accanto alla Signora, saranno un’esperienza dura, illuminante e formativa. Un libro intenso sulla fragilità dei sentimenti. Un tributo inedito a Oriana Fallaci. 

La protagonista, giovane, brillante e determinata, ha lasciato l’Italia per vivere nella Grande Mela dove l’aspettano un fidanzato e, spera, una nuova vita. Ma dietro alla vivacità, all’arte e alle luci scintillanti, scopre che la vita a New York non è come quella sognata dalla provincia.

Il percorso della giovane verrà stravolta dall’incontro con Oriana Fallaci che le offre un lavoro e le apre, per pochi mesi, le porte della propria casa e della propria anima. La sua inclemenza e le sue inaspettate confidenze saranno un’occasione di crescita e riflessione sulle scelte della propria vita e su quelle della solitaria scrittrice.

“Inutile negarlo: abbiamo bisogno di sapere che lasceremo qualcosa. Non ce ne frega un tubo se gli altri saranno d’accordo o se ci criticheranno, l’importante è che riusciamo a scorticare una parte di noi per regalarla all’eternità. In quest’ottica la scrittura è più soddisfacente di un figlio. Solo in quest’ottica morbosa ma irrimediabilmente umana, però. Perché un figlio prima o poi muore, la sua stirpe pure, le discendenze si diluiscono sempre di più con le generazioni. Ciò che scrivi, invece, è immutabile, permanente. La scrittura ti dà la certezza che la tua impronta rimanga.”

RECENSIONI

Elena Attala Perazzini

Tre stop a New York

Barbera editore 2009

Tre protagonisti, tre vite inquiete si intrecciano e rincorrono. L’epicentro: un locale dell’Est Village di Manhattan. Lo sfondo: il nuovo presidente, la Fashion Week, la Internet-bubble. Un libro che esplora con crudezza e passione una delle città più mitiche del nostro tempo e che si conclude con l’attacco alle Twin Towers dell’11 settembre 2001. 

RECENSIONI

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