Salgari He was a well-known Italian writer who stood out for making numerous works, the best known being "Sandokan", which was taken to TV and cinema, learn more about this character by reading the following article.
Salgari
Considered the most prolific and famous Italian writer of recent years, he dedicated himself to composing innumerable novels, stories, series and stories of characters and situations of adventure and drama, creating environments similar to those of any place in the world, it is believed that he wrote more of 80 novels and countless short stories, which reached various countries.
His works have been translated into several languages, especially the most famous "Sandokan", which became a best seller, a box office hit in the cinema and better yet, the television series that broke all audience records in the world. , allowed actor Kabir Bedi, a Pakistani national, to be brought to the forefront of cinema.
Emilio Salgari is considered one of the most important contemporary Italian writers, however his personal life did not have the same luck as his life as a writer, this man was an adventurer without an adventure, a sailor without a ship and a traveler with trips, his creativity to compose stories was awesome,
Apart from being a writer, he was also a journalist and sailor, he had the magic to create unlikely characters, which he describes with extraordinary natural and human conditions, which made the reader a form of literary attraction and narrative emotion.
Her popularity reached high levels during the 70s and 80s, with the novels "The Black Corsair", Sandokan", "The Count Cernazé" and "The Storm Captain" who was actually a female captain who had certain faculties and was very intelligent. Some friends and relatives who were close to the writer stated that Emilio Salgari's idea was to take the reader to travel the world.
Despite knowing all the world regions in his stories, descriptions of remote places in Africa, Latin America, the United States, Asia, and Oceania were reflected, this even allowed the writer himself to call himself "Captain Salgari", with the curiosity that he never He had never traveled the world.
Salgari rarely left his house, he loved being alone to develop his stories and be able to concentrate on the various themes that were going through his head. Despite his fame and the relevance of his novels, Emilio Salgari did not take advantage of his moment and died poor. He never had another job, he always lived from writing and above all from novels and stories.
It was learned that some publishers paid him very little for the admirable work he did, however Emilio Salgari was satisfied with only what was necessary to live. His life was full of sadness, some believe that spending a lot of time in his house isolated him to face situations that could eventually depress him.
The family was marked by suicide and tragedy, his father and uncle died by suicide, he had three children with Ida Peruzzi who also died by suicide after being admitted to a psychiatric hospital, two of his children also died by suicide, two of his brothers one died in a very sad way in an accident and the other of tuberculosis, in fact Emilio Salgari himself also opted for the action of committing suicide.
Biography
This great artist was born in the city of Verona, August 21, 1862, his family formed a group of small merchants who supported all members with average income, his father named Luigi Salgari and his mother Luigia Agradara, gave him a formal education and simple, at the age of 12 she studied at the “Paolo Sarpi” Royal Naval Technical Institute in Venice, where she never graduated.
The studies helped him to know the art of the seas where he was for a very short time making trips with relatives, but it seems that he did not have the vocation to become a great sailor, the trips made were sometimes through a school ship and a merchandise transport ship, where he works in various tasks to obtain some money that would allow him to support himself.
The longest trip made by Emilio Salgari was one of three months where they made port in the Tainan city of Brindisi, after this there is no other reference that can be believed to Emilio making other major trips, even in his own autobiography he does not mention any another relevant trip.
In the autobiography itself, Salgari himself calls himself "Captain Emilio Salgari", and even later he signed his works in this way in order to evade some publishers who were looking for a way to defraud him with his works, previously signed fraudulent contracts.
Family
In the month of January 1892, he married Ida Peruzzi, who was a theater actress and whom Emilio constantly called "Aida" even considering her the heroine of Giuseppe Verdi. They had four children and the same year of the marriage their first daughter was born whom he named Fatima.
Subsequently, three boys were born in a row Nadir (1894), Romero (1898) and Omar (1900), which represented an important burden for the writer, who nevertheless stated in his biography that he was always very happy next to his children and his wife, however the writer did not expect the changes to happen in his life in a tragic way. But let's not get ahead of the facts.
literary development
Emilio Salgari's inspiration to compose adventure novels was (according to the writer himself) due to his travels around the world and the characters he had met, however those trips were really inside his library, where he spent hours and hours reading and creating imaginary and magnificent stories.
The library provided him with all the knowledge that allowed him to create various literary forms of stories set in totally irreverent and supernatural situations. Situations related to botany, anthropology, explorations, nautical and endless experiences that came from the number of books can be seen in his work. and essays that Emilio Salgari had in his house.
Among the most emblematic characters that appear in the works of Emilio Salgari are Pirates, sailors, travelers, soldiers, Bedouin Indians and an endless number of natural heroes from various cultural currents and from various countries, which attracted the curiosity of thousands of readers. Worldwide.
Editors
Salgari's works were taken to the edition by many publishing companies, among which we can mention are the Spairani brothers, who had their headquarters in the city of Turin; Donath editions, located in Genoa; Bemporad publishing house, from Florence; Ediciones Treves, from Milan and one of the first publishing houses outside of Italy that produced Saturnino Calleja's books in Spain.
These publishers did not pay what was fair or necessary to the writer, who did not give importance to him, however his relatives made claims so that he could charge something more for delivering his works, most of the publishers claimed that his works do not have a literary depth and that they only served to sell them to a simple audience that does not require so much narrative.
This, however, was not true, since Emilio Salgari's novels were highly sought after and as time went by, the publishers themselves produced more works by the writer every day, deceiving him for almost his entire life, some even went so far as to say that his works would not go beyond his hometown.
He was even called the Italian Jules Verne, unlike Come if he was able to maintain his prestige and amassed a great fortune, at the age of 47 Emilio Salgari had noticed that he had been scammed and violated his good faith, and he sent a message to the editors , «I only ask that, to compensate for the money I have provided you, you take care of my funeral. I say goodbye breaking the pen.
So that during his last years of life, he clandestinely published novels where he signed under other names to evade the publishers with whom he had signed Pyrrhic contracts, they enslaved him in such a way that they constantly demanded that he produce novels at a faster rate. Quick.
Little by little the situation becomes more complex and Emilio felt a lot of pressure from the publishers, who have no compassion for the writer, these pressures and situations that we will see later, triggered a series of events that will end the creativity of Emilio Salgari.
Ida's illness
Over time his wife Ida fell ill with Tuberculosis, which represented a very big problem, since he had to attend to his wife's illness and in turn to the children, the debts grew daily, the books he sold to publishers paid very little and who was not among the famous Italian writers.
However, these publishers sold many books by Emilio Salgari and little by little they became richer, by the year 1889 his father committed suicide, and this contributed to the depression and emotional and spiritual decay of the writer, this event would be the first of a line of tragedies that occurred later.
Salgari's suicide
The excess of work, the hospitalization of his wife, the suicide of his father and his uncle, took Salgari's life down a ravine, he had begun to have problems with his eyesight and his health was getting worse, the writer did not sleep and suffers from Chronic fatigue, his wife was hospitalized in a public sanatorium since Salgari could not afford private hospitalization expenses.
In the month of March and April 1911, Salgari wrote a series of letters and emails with farewell notes addressed to his children, relatives and publishers, he had made the decision to commit suicide, he told the children that he felt defeated and that the madness of his wife Ida had broken his heart and he had no energy, while to his editors he sent a very interesting letter
He accused them of having exploited him and reproaches them for having enriched himself at his expense and leading him to the most unjust situation of misery. This caused that on April 25, 1911, the body of Emilio Salgari appeared in the ravine of the San Martino valley, near Turin.
The corpse had an open stomach following a samurai rite from the Seppuku region and culture in Japan. he made the decision surely when he was in an emotional abyss in which he could no longer get out, Some believe that it was the last adventure novel of his in which he never got out alive.
After his death
When Salgari died, the family tragedies did not end, the writing as it seems that he had felt a premonition and in order not to continue suffering he had taken his own life, his wife died a few months taking her own life in the sanatorium where she was hospitalized, years later two of his four children died, one committed suicide and the other ended up in hospital suffering from tuberculosis.
It is believed that Emilio Salgari's life could have had another course if he had made personal decisions on time, the crisis in which his family entered many times were due to the various ways in which Salgari did not want to admit that the publishers were scamming them. .
The writer realized very late the action of the publishers and accelerated the tragic process that led his relatives to a life full of tragedy and drama, stories that Salgari himself could not even endorse and then capture them in his works.
literary life
Being very young Salgari had begun to take his first steps as a writer in 1883, publishing in the Milan newspaper La valigia, where weekly stories of a story called Ia selvaggi della Papuasia appeared, simultaneously that same year he published a novel called La rosa of the Dong-Giang in the Verona newspaper La Nuova Arena.
Regarding a publication of a literary type, it was carried out in the same year 1883 when the novel Tay-See appears, the novel called El tigre de Malaysia also appears, which would be the first part of what would later be called «Sandokan ”, and then it was also published as “Los tigres de Mompracem” where an achievement of the first part is narrated but with some changes.
This character created by Emilio Salgari caused a lot of fury in Madrid, however a few years later in 1887, his works were being widely read and sought after by readers, his success was guaranteed but not his economic income, so this earned him to work as an editor in the company publisher La Nuova Arena, where he worked until 1893.
At that time he had an altercation with a journalist from the Adige newspaper surnamed Biasioli who once dared to make fun of a competing journalist "who claims to be an admiral and is not even a cabin boy." that journalist was none other than Salgari, and when he felt alluded to, he attacked the journalist.
Salgari slapped him in the face in public and challenged him to a duel with foils, during the duel Salgari wounded him in the nose and in the chest as soon as the fight began. According to biographer Ernesto Ferrero, the writer was sentenced to six days in jail and to pay a fine of 30 liras, which he paid with dignity.
In 1898, Mr. Donath, a very influential publisher in Italy, convinced him to move to Genoa, where he met the cartoonist Giuseppe "Pipe In" Gamba who would be his trusted illustrator for a long time. He returns to Turin in the year 1900, where he finds himself in a very complicated family situation, however Salgari made literary efforts to support his family.
In 1907, the contract with Mr. Donath ends and he signs a contract with the Bemporad publishing house, with whom he would work until the day of his death, making some 20 novels for that firm. After his death, the novels grew in popularity, especially among young audiences.
Some novels reached 100.000 editions in less than a year, and as we already know, he was unable to take advantage of this literary proliferation due to his innocence as a businessman. His novels were even read many years later and in the 70s and 80s he achieved international fame with the publication and screening of his masterpiece "Sandokan, The Malaysian Tiger."
Emilio Salgari Works
Emilio Salgari was able to make various novels and stories of various genres where some historians were able to group them into different genres that allows us to appreciate all the talent and creativity of this great writer, it is impressive how he was able to have so much knowledge of many places in the world without having seen them, only having as a guide the texts of his library.
The works of Salgari they reached approximately more than 80 novels, stories and short stories, they were very diverse and were grouped according to their characteristics related to the stories and these groups or cycles of stories were published for many years.
Adventure and Cycles
- Pirates Cycle, where Salgari performs various stories related to corsair activities in the regions of Malaysia, the Caribbean and Europe, set in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.
- Cycle Adventures in the Far West where the author recounts in three parts the story and adventures of Colonel De Vandell, Salem Yalla and her daughter Minnehaha in their relentless quest for revenge against white men. Minor cycles, related to various stories and short stories always linked with adventures and fantastic characters.
- Independent novels, Emilio Salgari makes a series of novels where he refers to stories that took place on the African continent, Oceania, Asia, South and North America as well as adventures in countries such as Russia, India, Italy, also related to the South Poles and north, and countless very curious stories in the sea and the jungle.
Chronological order of works
Here is a list of the most important published works as some biographers called it, emilio salgari books, from the beginning of his literary activity to the last work published a few months before his death:
- 1887 The Mahdi's Favorite (Adventure)
- 1888 Two thousand leagues below America (Adventure).
- 1892 The Scimitar of Buddha (Adventure).
- 1894 The whale fishermen (Adventure) The sailor tales of Mastro Catrame Tale).
- 1895 The mysteries of the black jungle (Novel) The king of the mountain (Adventure Novel). The king of the mountain (Adventure). Trip to the Austral Pole on a velocipede (Adventure). A drama in the Pacific Ocean (Adventure). The shipwreck of the settler (Adventure).
- 1896 The tigers of Mompracem (Novel), The pirates of Malaysia (Novel). The dramas of slavery (Adventure Novel). The king of the prairie (Adventure), The castaways of Oregon (Adventure). The Robinsons (Adventure) .The fishermen of Trepang (Adventure). Nel paese dei ghiacci (Adventure). Across the Atlantic in a balloon (Adventure). The castaways of the Liguria (Adventure).
- 1897 The horrors of the Philippines (short story). The Mahdi's Favorite (Adventure Novel). The Dramas of Slavery (Adventure). The Captain of the Djumna (Adventure). The Rose of the Dong-Giang (Story)
- 1898 The Black Corsair (Adventure). The Ivory Coast (Adventure Novel). The Ivory Coast (Adventure). Winter at the North Pole (Adventure). The city of gold (Adventure).
- 1899 The Diamond Cave (Adventure Novel). The adventure of a sailor in Africa (Adventure Novel). The captain of the Yucatan (Adventure).
- 1900 The adventurers of the sea (Adventure Novel). The miners of Alaska (Adventure). Adventures among the redskins (Adventure). The horrors of Siberia (Adventure). Gli scorridori del mare (Adventure). Tales from the Golden Library Tales).
- 1901 The Queen of the Caribs (Adventure) The Flower of Pearls (Short story). The ravages of China (Adventure). The "Polar Star" in the Arctic Sea (Adventure).
- 1902 The White Giraffe (Adventure Novel). The explorers of the Meloria (Adventure). The Mountain of Light (Aventur).
- 1903 The bandits of the Sahara (Adventure Novel). The panthers of Algiers (Adventure).). In the sea of pearls (Adventure).
- 1904 The two tigers (Novel). The children of the air (The smaller). The golden mountain (La montagna d'oro, 1901. Other title: The flying train). The Sovereign of the Golden Field (Adventure). The heroine of Puerto Arturo (Adventure). The man of fire (Adventure). The lonely of the ocean (Adventure). The Great Sea Fishing in Australia (Story)
- 1905 Yolanda, the daughter of the Black Corsair (Adventure). Captain Storm (Short story), The daughters of the pharaohs (Adventure) The red pearl (Adventure).
- 1906 The king of the sea (Novel) The city of the leper king (Adventure). The pearl of the Red River (Adventure). The star of the Araucanía Adventure).
- 1907 To the conquest of an empire (Novel) The revenge of Sandokan (Novel). The king of the air (The minor). In the plains of Algeria (Adventure Novel). The eagles of the steppe (Adventure). The treasure of the Blue Mountain (Adventure). The wonders of 2000 (Science fiction).
- 1908 The reconquest of Mompracem (Novel) The son of the Red Corsair (Adventure) The last filibusters (Adventure). On the borders of the Far West (Adventure story). Carthage in flames (Adventure).
- 1909 The corsairs of Bermuda (Adventure), The Scalp Hunter (Adventure). A challenge at the Pole (Adventure). The Italian Bohemian (Autobiography).
- 1910 Two boardings (Adventure), Los brulé (Adventure), The Lion of Damascus (The smaller). Storie rosse (Story).
- 1911 The False Brahman (Novel), The Fall of an Empire (Novel), The Extraordinary Adventures of Stone Head (Adventure), The Rif Bandits (Adventure Novel). The Forgiveness of the Great Desert (Adventure Novel)
- 1913 Yáñez's revenge (Novel).
Emilio Salgari was a great creator of stories and adventures, he had a unique ability to create and innovate in various forms of tales and stories. A contemporary writer named Ernesto Ferrero has carried out the biography of Emilio Salgari called "The Last Voyage of Captain Salgari", in which he expresses the life and work of the writer in a very emotional way.
In that biography, the author explains that Emilio Salgari never sought to be a notable writer nor did he seek fame, and he believes that this way of thinking led him to have so many family and economic problems,
Salgari's notoriety is manifested by his pronounced humility and, above all, by his dedication. In his professional life, all he did was write stories and novels. He dedicated a large part of his time to this activity. Some believe that it served to isolate himself from family reality and economic problems.
What is impressive about the work of Emilio Salgari is that, almost 70 years after his death, his works could be brought to the fore on television and in the movies, which says a lot about the content of his adventurous novels. On the other hand, it has been a source of inspiration for many Italian screenwriters and writers who have been able to carry out contemporary novels and stories.
One of the literary characteristics of Salgari was that he never extended himself in paragraphs and copied content, nor did he try to make very extensive descriptions of landscapes, structures of palaces and buildings with gardens that sometimes result in unnecessary reading and for the reader's vision. He did not use a technical and specific narrative, so the readers never tired of the stories.
His books do not incur in gross errors, that is, he did not seek to collapse or saturate the characters, the elements maintain sobriety and not mystical exaggeration, but he tried through creativity to create very interesting adventurous situations, it is then observed how he manages to carry the reader to various places on the planet such as jungles, deserts, seas and even situations in the south and north poles.
With regard to social criticism, he knew how to describe and even denounce in a very sublime way where situations of a racial or slave nature are hidden in an adventure and description of situations where they warned of injustice without really showing a complaint.
His books and stories were read by the Italian royalty who decided to grant him at the beginning of the XNUMXth century the title of Italian knight by Queen Elena of Montenegro, who was also a faithful reader and fan of his works, this title for Salgari only represented an honor, but nevertheless he did not know how to use this nobility to be able to lead a more open and prosperous life.
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