Italish Magazine Irlandesi Dentro
This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)
Peter Murphy is one of the San Patrizio Livorno Festival 2020 Irish guest. We asked him a few questions about his involvement.
IM – What do you know of the SPLF, how did you get involved?
Peter Murphy – About a year ago I was approached by the Irish novelist Catherine Dunne and her Italian co-conspirator Max Roveri. I’d met Catherine before at a literary festival in San Damiano D’Asti in 2014 (Catherine is a bit of a rock star in Italy).
The pair told me about their Dublin Tarot Project, wherein writers are invited to contribute a piece of work based on or inspired by a card from the Tarot deck, a la Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies.
They asked if I’d be interested in contributing, and I said yes, of course, without any idea of what I might write.
There was also the suggestion of premiering the work in Livorno.
PM – I mulled over the proposal over the next couple of weeks. One day, I dug out a sort of autofictional performance piece/prose-poem I’d been working on, but hadn’t yet completed.
I started wondering if in some way this might connect to the Tarot project.
I began exploring this possibility, assigning each card from the Major Arcana to a section of the work. Somehow the imposition of this structure helped me bring the piece to fruition.
I suggested presenting it as a performance piece, with musicians, and score, and Catherine and Max seemed quite excited about this idea.
I then sent the text to my friends Cillian and Lorcan Byrne from Wexford band Basciville. We’d been planning to collaborate for ages. I thought this might be the perfect opportunity.
IM – What are you going to do in Livorno?
PM – There’ll be a 40 minute (approx) performance of the piece I mentioned. It’s entitled My Days in the Major Arcana: words, voice and music. I’ll also be doing some solo performances, readings, talks, and perhaps some collaborative stuff too. Can’t wait.
IM – What do you expect from the SPLF2020?
PM – Inspiration. Integration. Ingestion. Indigestion.
IM – What do you know about Italian literature/ arts? Any author, book, you know and like?
PM – Dante Alighieri. Umberto Eco. Primo Levi. Fellini’s films. Morricone’s scores. Pasolini’s poetry.
