His first book, Comiche, was published in 1970 in the
Giulio Einaudi's publishing company with an introduction by
Italo Calvino, with whom he planned to found a literary magazine which never came to light. Another writer interested in the projects was
Carlo Ginzburg. All the letters were preserved and published later by the magazine Riga, no. 14 (1998), which later dedicated the entire no. 28 (2008) to Celati.
His three novels Le avventure di Guizzardi (1972), La banda dei sospiri (1976), and Lunario del paradiso (1978) were later published together in Parlamenti buffi (1998), with a leave-letter of the author to his own book, which marked his passage from Einaudi to the
Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's publishing company.
In 1985, he wrote the stories of Narratori delle pianure (Grinzane Cavour Prize); in 1987 Quattro novelle sulle apparenze; and in 1989 Verso la foce (Mondello Prize). The three books reveal a new direction in the author's style, more serious and visual after the amusing and explosive wordy manner of the previous ones.
In 2000, Rebecca J. West dedicated her Gianni Celati: The Craft of Everyday Storytelling to his writings (published by
University of Toronto Press).
Other stories by Celati were collected in Cinema naturale (2001, Piero Chiara Prize). In 2005, he published the pseudo-anthropological study Fata Morgana (2005, Ennio Flaiano Prize). In 2006, he won the
Viareggio Prize for his novel Vite di pascolanti[2] and made the third James K. Binder Lectureship in Literature at the
University of California in San Diego on "
Fellini on the Italian Male".
He also directed a few documentaries, such as Strada Provinciale delle Anime (1991), Il Mondo di Luigi Ghirri (1999, on the Italian
photographer), Case Sparse (2003), and Diol Kadd (2010, shot in
Senegal); while he starred in Mondonuovo (2003) by the director Davide Ferrario, a movie on Celati's childhood.
Lunario del paradiso, Einaudi, 1978; Feltrinelli 1989; 1996 (novel)
Alice disambientata, L'erba voglio, Milan, 1978; Le lettere, Rome, 2007 (pseudo-essay on
Lewis Carroll)
Narratori delle pianure, Feltrinelli, 1985; 1988; translated by Robert Lumley, Voices from the plains, Serpent's Tail, London, 1989 (stories)
Quattro novelle sulle apparenze, Feltrinelli, 1987; 1996; translated by
Stuart Hood as Appearances, Serpent's Tail, 1991 (stories)
La farsa dei tre clandestini. Un adattamento dai Marx Brothers, Baskerville, Bologna, 1987 (theatre)
Verso la foce, Feltrinelli 1988; 1992 (travels)
Parlamenti buffi, Feltrinelli, 1989 (including Le avventure del Guizzardi, La banda dei sospiri, and Lunario del paradiso)
L'Orlando innamorato raccontato in prosa, Einaudi, 1994 (rewriting in prose of the classical poem)
Recita dell'attore Attilio Vecchiatto al teatro di Rio Saliceto, Feltrinelli, 1996 (theatre)
Avventure in Africa, Feltrinelli 1998;
Cinema naturale, Feltrinelli 2001; 2003 (stories)
Fata Morgana, Feltrinelli, 2005 (pseudo-essay)
Vite di pascolanti, Nottetempo, Rome, 2006 (stories)
Costumi degli italiani: 1. Un eroe moderno, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2008 (stories)
Costumi degli italiani: 2. Il benessere arriva in casa Pucci, Quodlibet 2008 (stories)
Sonetti del Badalucco nell'Italia odierna, Feltrinelli, 2010 (poems as if written by Attilio Vecchiatto, character of the 1996 book and theatrical work)
Conversazioni del vento volatore, Quodlibet 2011 (interviews)
Passar la vita a Diol Kadd. Diari 2003-2006, Feltrinelli 2011 (with DVD)
Selve d'amore, Quodlibet 2013 (stories)
Translations in English
Adventures in Africa (Avventure in Africa), translated by Adria Bernardi, foreword by Rebecca J. West. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000
Sources
Rebecca J. West, Gianni Celati: The Craft of Everyday Storytelling, University of Toronto Press, 2000