Antonio D’Alfonso
Antonio D’Alfonso’s parents came from Molise, Italy, to Montreal where he was born in 1953. He attended both English and French schools and studied at Loyola College where he earned a B.A. in Communication Arts (1975). At the Université de Montréal he completed a M.Sc. in Communication Studies, specializing in Semiology. His French M.A. thesis was on Mouchette, a film by Robert Bresson. He worked on a number of films, both behind the camera and in front of the camera. In 1978 he founded Guernica Editions, where he edited over one hundred books by authors from around the world. An author himself, he has published a number of books in French and in English. In Quebec his collection of prose-poems, L’autre rivage, (1987) was critically very well received and was nominated for awards. The English version, The Other Shore (1986) captures the mediations on cultural dislocation, and the conflicts of living in different cultural contexts. This conflict is a concrete reality for D’Alfonso as illustrated by the publications of his books in separate French and then English editions: L’Amour panique (1988), Panick Love (1992), Avril ou l’anti-passion (1990), Fabrizio’s Passion (1995). D’Alfonso also works in Italian which makes him one of that rare breed: the trilingual writer.
Through his editing work on a number of anthologies and translations D’Alfonso has encouraged and promoted the work of a number of younger writers in both Quebec and English Canada. He also worked as literary critic for numerous magazines across Canada, in both English and French. He has regularly given conferences on questions of literature, film and multiculturalism in Canada, the U.S.A. and Europe. In 1982, along with three other writers, he founded the trilingual Montreal magazine, Vice Versa. In 1986, along with eight other writers, he founded the Association of Italian-Canadian writers. In 1990 he began the Writers Series at Guernica Editions: individual volumes each devoted to a Canadian author. While he still works in French, he now lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.
Updated February 12 2015 by Student & Academic Services