152 154 terzani

Curious, affable, but not very easy-going... Vigorous and exuberant,
he called himself a barn-burner. A man with two images: the one
romantic, choreographic and vigorous and the other sober, silent,
Terzani: the man, the journalist,
the philosophical writer
PORTFOLIO
by Valerio Pellizzari
and reserved. A portrait of an itinerant Florentine, indomitable
traveller, of a journalist-writer who had certainly left a deep mark on
the memory of his time.
iziano Terzani’s handwriting seemed to
mix Latin letters and Chinese
ideograms. It proclaimed him, and still
proclaims him today to those who do not
yet know him, as a person with a vigorous
and exuberant character, who did not worry
about obstacles, prohibitions, refusals, or
official lies, who was not afraid to be on the
front line, and who did not mind being in
the limelight. Or so it seemed.
Even the colours of the ink that he chose
each time he wrote – emerald green,
turquoise, violet, sepia – were a sign of a use
of language and a character out of the
ordinary. His voice revealed the same thing:
it, too, had an impetuous tone and was
untiring in narration. His breathtaking use
of the camera, even more breathtaking after
the appearance of the first, miniscule
Japanese models, completed the portrait. Or
so it seemed.
At times he defined himself, half jokingly
and half seriously, a “barn-burner,” a
witness who is quickly inflamed, who stokes
great bursts of flames and who then reduces
a great heap of sensations, observations and
news to a small pile of ashes. There is a
photo, taken from the back by Vincenzo
Cottinelli (see following portfolio, editor’s
T
152
note), showing him, his wife and son, which
immediately makes me think of another
image, seen one day at sunset in New Delhi,
with my own eyes, without the mediation of
any lens. That day I saw Sonja Gandhi and
her two children from the back, hugging
each other as they waited for the pile of
wood to catch fire under the body of Rajiv,
who had been assassinated. Perhaps it was
no coincidence that India was the last
Oriental domicile in Tiziano’s itinerary, the
place that helped him to reach a synthesis in
his thoughts in an era suffocated by a sea of
superfluous and ephemeral details.
But, in contrast with the most common
image of the Florentine traveller obstinately
dressed in white – and mysteriously,
miraculously always clean despite the
minimal baggage that he carried with him –
other more substantial, more solid elements
accompanied his pilgrimages and sustained
his curiosity. In Bangkok, he moved into the
“Turtle House”. It was an enchanted place,
where a luxurious garden and garden
animals blended into the wood floor, into the
bookshelves, and into the daily lives of the
occupants. Seen from that oasis, the large,
looming cement buildings around the house
almost disappeared, it was like living in 19th
Vincenzo Cottinelli_Grazia Neri
century Indochina. But, in that magic house,
when it was time to write A Fortune-Teller
Told Me, Tiziano chose to enclose himself in
a tiny room as empty as a monk’s cell, with
a single window that looked out onto a grey
wall just a few feet away. Inside this
rigorous, almost prison-like geometry,
without colours, Tiziano put his words in
order and controlled the incendiary stimuli
of his character. Inside that little room he
recounted, with frankness, “Even now, after
many years in the profession, my hands
sweat when I start to write”.
Some time later, in 1997, another episode
clearly bore witness to the discipline and the
solidity in Tiziano’s style of working, behind
the exuberant facade. The day had arrived
for Hong Kong to be returned to China. The
English abandoned that cornerstone of their
colonial history, accompanied by a violent
monsoon that stripped Her Majesty’s troops
of their pomp and decorum, soaked to the
bone. The spectacle of hauling down the flag
was finished, the yacht Britannia and the
black Rolls Royces had completed their
appearance, the lights of the television
cameras were turned off. But, the morning
after, before dawn, in another torrential rain,
the arrival of the Chinese soldiers was
scheduled. We had not planned to meet but,
Tiziano on one side and I on the other,
without meeting each other, were there in
the rain to see those soldiers with their
white gloves, their new, oversized uniforms,
rigidly lined up in the open air, in brand new
trucks, soaked like the English the day
before. That ritual and almost clandestine
entry, ignored by most correspondents, gave
the true sense of the return of Beijing. With
time, two images of Terzani were circulated
and consolidated: one was romantic,
choreographic and vigorous, the other
temperate, silent and protected. The
indomitable traveller arrived one day in a
distant place in Asia, where the authorities
had isolated him in an inn on the outskirts
of town. He had climbed the wall and,
astride a donkey, had headed toward the
forbidden city, followed by a procession of
curious people. The same traveller, another
day, slipped into a Pakistani ambulance, on
the Afghan border of Chaman, to reach the
Taliban at the peak of the war. He got
through where no one was able to get
through, before being brusquely intercepted.
TERZANI: THE MAN, THE JOURNALIST, THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITER
Grazia Neri
Likewise there were two distinct and
profoundly different moments in his work. 30 YEARS OF REPORTAGES
First, there was journalistic investigation,
enthusiasm for the profession, followed later Tiziano Terzani, writer and journalist, was an expert on
the Asian continent and one of the most internationally
by literary production, reflection, religious
prestigious Italian journalists, author of news reports and
incursion. In the middle, like a massive
stories translated around the world. Terzani was born in
mountain watershed, there was his illness.
Florence in 1938. After obtaining a Law degree and a
Personally, I believe there was a close tie
Master’s degree in International Affairs at Colombia
connecting his disillusionment with his
University in New York, where he studied Chinese histoprofession, which had become twisted,
ry and culture, he began a 30-year collaboration with the
industrialised, hysterically fast, increasingly
German weekly “Der Spiegel” as their Asian corresponsuperficial, with the appearance of his
dent. In 1975, he was one of the few journalists to remain
physical illness. It was as if the traveller full
in Saigon where he witnessed the communists take
of curiosity and energy had given up. The
power. Based on this experience, he wrote Giai Phong!
first pages of Letters Against the War
The Fall and Liberation of Saigon which was translated
contain serious comments against the news
into various languages. After four years in Hong Kong,
information system. In private, however,
he moved with his family to Beijing. One of the first corTiziano said even more ferocious things
respondents to return to Phnom Penh after the
against that world which was both betrayed
Vietnamese action in Cambodia, he tells of his trip in
and betrayer. The historical “Far Eastern
Holocaust in Kambodscha. In 1984, he was arrested for
Economic Review”, a sort of weekly bible
“counterrevolutionary activities” and then deported,
for residents and habitués of the Orient,
bringing an end to his long stay in China. His intense
folded after half a century; it died exactly
Chinese experience was the basis for The Forbidden
the same year as Tiziano.
Door. He next lived in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok.
The work of the “Der Spiegel”
He was in Siberia when he heard the news of the anticorrespondent changed and transformed as
Gorbachev coup d’etat and his long journey to Moscow
he moved away from the obligatory
would become Good Night, Mr. Lenin, a firsthand testiappointments of the news. His physical
mony to the fall of the Soviet empire. In 1994, he moved
appearance changed in parallel fashion. But
to India with his wife, Angela Staude, and their two chilthe dimension of the guru, the prophet, that
dren. The following year, he wrote A Fortune-Teller Told
some seem to perceive in his last years, is
Me, chronicle of a year lived as a correspondent in Asia
reductive and inappropriate. Already, a
without ever taking an airplane. The book became a bestquarter of a century ago, after the fall of the
seller and was followed by In Asia, published in ’98. In
Red Khmer, a small group of Cambodians
adoringly described the arrival of a foreigner ’97 Terzani won the prestigious “Luigi Barzini Award for
Special Correspondent.” After the attacks on 11
at the temples of Angkor, “One day a tall,
September 2001 and the military attack in Afghanistan
handsome, friendly Italian, dressed in white,
by the USA, he joined the debate on terrorism, publishappeared”. It was the tale of an apparition.
ing Letters Against the War and began a “peace pilgrimInstead, it is true that for many years
age” to schools and public appearances, lending his supTiziano Terzani walked the by-ways of Asia
with increasingly less baggage, progressively port to the cause of Emergency, together with Gino
Strada. In March 2004, his last book One More Ride on
abandoning even the shelves of books he
the Carousel. A Journey Through the Good and Evil of
had accumulated. It is as if he had lived two
Our Times, was published. In this book he speaks of himlives, with two professions and two different
self, of his illness (he died on 28 July at his house in
faces. Even his coloured inks find a new
Orsigna) and of how he saw the world.
profession when they are no longer
necessary for taking notes destined for
newspapers, they do not disappear. On the
contrary, they progressively become the
tools for painting the watercolours of his
final days.
154
PORTFOLIO
TIZIANO TERZANI
REVIEWED BY VINCENZO COTTINELLI
155
Above, Terzani in Calcutta in ‘97 for the marriage of his son Folco. Below, the journalist is in New Delhi in the offices of “Der Spiegel”.
On the page next to Bellosguardo, next to an attractive ancient statue of a woman passing by
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On the page next to Terzani in Calcutta, photo reporter in the crowd. Above, in his Tuscan villa in Orsigna, in the usual emersion into the crowds of the
presentation of one of his books and elegantly dressed in white as usual in front of a glass case
159
Terzani public and private: at the marriage of his daughter Saskia in Florence, immersed in reading and, below, face to face with his son Folco
THESE PICTURES are taken from the book Tiziano Terzani: ritratto di un amico, by Vincenzo Cottinelli,
edited by A. Vallardi. The volume collects 120 photos in black and white that provide a very full portrait
of Terzani. The images represent Terzani the man and father, the journalist and passionate defender of
the ideas of peace, the student of the Orient and narrator of his diverse realities
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