A virtual handover, but very significant especially for the Italian culture. Exactly three years ago, two events shook the world of culture: on the same day, 13 October 2016, he died in Milan at the age of 90 Dario Fo, the last Italian Nobel Prize for Literature (he was awarded in 1997), and in the meantime in Stockholm the same recognition is assigned, amid not a few controversies, to the musician Bob Dylan. In reality, argues the Swedish Academy - and following the rock star's millions of fans around the world, Dylan is much more than a singer, and his pen apparently deserves recognition that for the first time in history is not awarded to a professional author.
The author was certainly Dario Fo, but not only: the artist born on 24 March 1926 in Sangiano, in the province of Varese, from a humble and markedly anti-fascist family, he was also a playwright, director, illustrator, painter, set designer and, especially in the last stages of his life in which he also sided politically, an activist. Fo, almost twenty years before Bob Dylan, won the Nobel with the following motivation: "Following the tradition of medieval jesters, mocks power by restoring dignity to the oppressed."
Dario Fo was in fact the author of theatrical performances that made use of the comic stylistic features of the Italian commedia dell'arte, and which over the decades have been successfully represented all over the world. As an actor, director, writer, set designer, costume designer and impresario of his own company, Fo was a man of the theater in the round. Famous for his plays of political and social satire and for his left-wing political commitment, with his wife Franca Rame he was among the exponents of the Rosso Militante Rescue.
