Review "Nowadays, it is becoming harder to distinguish between artistic and commercial life. The role of the artist has been reduced to his success or failure in commercial terms... these mass-produced voices are not those which will tell us whether we are heading for disaster and, if so, how to prevent it." Eugenio Montale speaking to Melinda Camber Porter in Milan in 1977 "Montale also felt a kinship with the American poet T.S.Eliot (another disciple of Dante). Melinda Camber Porter has written that both poets possess similar styles and "a common predilection for dry, desolate, cruel landscapes. Her interview with Montale offers the reader a candid view of the poet as he discusses with her some personal observations of his life and times." Canio Pavone, Professor of Italian Literature About the Author Melinda Camber Porter (1953 - 2008) was born in London and graduated from Oxford University with a First Class Honors degree in Modern Languages. She began her writing career in Paris as a cultural correspondent for The Times of London. The Boston Globe describes her book, Through Parisian Eyes (Oxford University Press), as "a particularly readable and brilliantly and uniquely compiled collection." She interviewed many cultural figures during her career including: Nobel Prize winners Saul Bellow, Gunter Grass, Eugenio Montale, and Octavio Paz; and many leading filmmakers and writers. Her novel Badlands, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, was set on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It was acclaimed by Louis Malle, who said: "better than a novel, it reads like a fierce poem, with a devastating effect on our self-esteem," and by Publishers Weekly, which called it, "a novel of startling, dreamlike lyricism." A traveling art exhibition celebrating Melinda's paintings, curated by the late Leo Castelli, opened at the French Embassy in New York City in 1993. Peter Trippi, Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine said: "In our era of slickly produced images, teeming with messages rather than feelings, Melinda's art strikes a distinctive balance between the achingly personal and the aesthetically beautiful."
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