Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo was born in Modica on 20 August 1901 and died in Naples on 14 June 1968. He was one of the most important Italian poets of the twentieth century and a key figure of the Hermetic movement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959. His most celebrated collections of poems include Acque e terre, Ed è subito sera, and La vita non è sogno. For Pirelli magazine, he published a translation of Book XXIII of the Iliad, “Giochi funebri in onore di Patroclo“ (Funeral Games in Honour of Patroclus), in issue no. 3 of 1949, and an article, “Muri siciliani“ (Sicilian Walls) in issue no. 5 of 1951.