The American University of Rome is hosting an exclusive book launch, signing and reception at the Rotunda of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The event will showcase one of AUR’s best-loved professors, Andrea di Robilant, and his latest book, Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and his Last Muse.
Di Robilant’s latest publication gives us the remarkable story of Hemingway's love affair with both the city of Venice and the muse he found there. In the fall of 1948 Hemingway and his fourth wife traveled for the first time to Venice, which Hemingway called "a goddam wonderful city." He was a year shy of his fiftieth birthday and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. At a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking Venetian girl just out of finishing school. Di Robilant--whose great-uncle moved in Hemingway's revolving circle of bon vivants, aristocrats, and artists--re-creates with sparkling clarity this surprising, years-long relationship. Hemingway used Adriana as the model for Renata in Across the River and into the Trees, and continued to visit Venice to see her; when the Ivanciches traveled to Cuba, Adriana was there as he wrote The Old Man and the Sea.
This illuminating story of writer and muse--which also examines the cost to a young woman of her association with a larger-than-life literary celebrity--is an intimate look at the fractured heart and changing art of Hemingway in his fifties.
Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and his Last Muse is published by Alfred A. Knopf and will be publicly released in the United States on the day of the event. It will be possible to purchase a copy of the book at the event.
Below you can listen to an interview between Andrea Di Robilant and Richard Hodges, President of The American University of Rome, as they discuss Di Robilant's new book and the life of Hemingway.
ANDREA DI ROBILANT
Andrea di Robilant is a journalist and writer who divides his time between Rome and Venice. Born and raised in Italy, he studied history and politics at Columbia University and spent many years in the United States as a correspondent for the Italian newspapers La Repubblica and La Stampa. He is the author of several books such as A Venetian Affair (a New York Times “notable book of the year” set in eighteenth century Venice), Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon, a widely praised biography of the author’s ancestor, Lucia Mocenigo, Irresistible North, and Chasing the Rose: An Adventure in the Venetian Countryside.
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT
For inquiries, please write to Laura Estrada Prada at l.estrada@aur.edu