Erri de Luca, an interesting interview

Cafe Babel provides me with some of the best interviews and most interesting people ...

I wandered over and read Brunch with Erri de Luca and wasn't disappointed.

He is the Winner of the 2002 Prix Fémina for Foreign Writers for his splendid Montedidio – written in 'very Neapolitan Italian' – Erri de Luca reflects on Europe, the Mediterranean and the passing of generations.

A taste ... In his checked lumberjack shirt and alpine boots, it’s clear that in the Paris office of the publishers Gallimard, Erri De Luca is a fish out of water. Amongst circling gaggles of journalists and wafts of Chanel perfume, this 'writer in Italian' as he prefers to be known, albeit of very Neapolitan background and character, shows his true colours: a man of the mountains, an outsider – aloof perhaps, or shy? But a man apart certainly.

In the footsteps of Nives, ('Sulla traccia di Nives', 2005), he relates his Himalayan experience in the company of the famed Italian female mountaineer Nives Meroi. De Luca retains the air of the countryside about him, despite having lived in the outskirts of Rome for some time.