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T iziano Terzani’s handwriting seemed tomix Latin letters and Chineseideograms. It proclaimed him, and still

proclaims him today to those who do notyet know him, as a person with a vigorousand exuberant character, who did not worryabout obstacles, prohibitions, refusals, orofficial lies, who was not afraid to be on thefront line, and who did not mind being inthe limelight. Or so it seemed.Even the colours of the ink that he choseeach time he wrote – emerald green,turquoise, violet, sepia – were a sign of a useof language and a character out of theordinary. His voice revealed the same thing:it, too, had an impetuous tone and wasuntiring in narration. His breathtaking useof the camera, even more breathtaking afterthe appearance of the first, minisculeJapanese models, completed the portrait. Orso it seemed.At times he defined himself, half jokinglyand half seriously, a “barn-burner,” awitness who is quickly inflamed, who stokesgreat bursts of flames and who then reducesa great heap of sensations, observations andnews to a small pile of ashes. There is aphoto, taken from the back by VincenzoCottinelli (see following portfolio, editor’s

note), showing him, his wife and son, whichimmediately makes me think of anotherimage, seen one day at sunset in New Delhi,with my own eyes, without the mediation ofany lens. That day I saw Sonja Gandhi andher two children from the back, huggingeach other as they waited for the pile ofwood to catch fire under the body of Rajiv,who had been assassinated. Perhaps it wasno coincidence that India was the lastOriental domicile in Tiziano’s itinerary, theplace that helped him to reach a synthesis inhis thoughts in an era suffocated by a sea ofsuperfluous and ephemeral details.But, in contrast with the most commonimage of the Florentine traveller obstinatelydressed in white – and mysteriously,miraculously always clean despite theminimal baggage that he carried with him –other more substantial, more solid elementsaccompanied his pilgrimages and sustainedhis curiosity. In Bangkok, he moved into the“Turtle House”. It was an enchanted place,where a luxurious garden and gardenanimals blended into the wood floor, into thebookshelves, and into the daily lives of theoccupants. Seen from that oasis, the large,looming cement buildings around the housealmost disappeared, it was like living in 19th

Curious, affable, but not very easy-going... Vigorous and exuberant,

he called himself a barn-burner. A man with two images: the one

romantic, choreographic and vigorous and the other sober, silent,

and reserved. A portrait of an itinerant Florentine, indomitable

traveller, of a journalist-writer who had certainly left a deep mark on

the memory of his time.

Terzani: the man, the journalist,the philosophical writer

by Valerio PellizzariPORTFOLIO

century Indochina. But, in that magic house,when it was time to write A Fortune-TellerTold Me, Tiziano chose to enclose himself ina tiny room as empty as a monk’s cell, witha single window that looked out onto a greywall just a few feet away. Inside thisrigorous, almost prison-like geometry,without colours, Tiziano put his words inorder and controlled the incendiary stimuliof his character. Inside that little room herecounted, with frankness, “Even now, aftermany years in the profession, my handssweat when I start to write”.Some time later, in 1997, another episodeclearly bore witness to the discipline and thesolidity in Tiziano’s style of working, behindthe exuberant facade. The day had arrivedfor Hong Kong to be returned to China. TheEnglish abandoned that cornerstone of theircolonial history, accompanied by a violentmonsoon that stripped Her Majesty’s troopsof their pomp and decorum, soaked to thebone. The spectacle of hauling down the flagwas finished, the yacht Britannia and theblack Rolls Royces had completed theirappearance, the lights of the televisioncameras were turned off. But, the morningafter, before dawn, in another torrential rain,the arrival of the Chinese soldiers wasscheduled. We had not planned to meet but,Tiziano on one side and I on the other,without meeting each other, were there inthe rain to see those soldiers with theirwhite gloves, their new, oversized uniforms,rigidly lined up in the open air, in brand newtrucks, soaked like the English the daybefore. That ritual and almost clandestineentry, ignored by most correspondents, gavethe true sense of the return of Beijing. Withtime, two images of Terzani were circulatedand consolidated: one was romantic,choreographic and vigorous, the othertemperate, silent and protected. Theindomitable traveller arrived one day in adistant place in Asia, where the authoritieshad isolated him in an inn on the outskirtsof town. He had climbed the wall and,astride a donkey, had headed toward theforbidden city, followed by a procession ofcurious people. The same traveller, anotherday, slipped into a Pakistani ambulance, onthe Afghan border of Chaman, to reach theTaliban at the peak of the war. He gotthrough where no one was able to getthrough, before being brusquely intercepted. Vi

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Likewise there were two distinct andprofoundly different moments in his work.First, there was journalistic investigation,enthusiasm for the profession, followed laterby literary production, reflection, religiousincursion. In the middle, like a massivemountain watershed, there was his illness.Personally, I believe there was a close tieconnecting his disillusionment with hisprofession, which had become twisted,industrialised, hysterically fast, increasinglysuperficial, with the appearance of hisphysical illness. It was as if the traveller fullof curiosity and energy had given up. Thefirst pages of Letters Against the Warcontain serious comments against the newsinformation system. In private, however,Tiziano said even more ferocious thingsagainst that world which was both betrayedand betrayer. The historical “Far EasternEconomic Review”, a sort of weekly biblefor residents and habitués of the Orient,folded after half a century; it died exactlythe same year as Tiziano.The work of the “Der Spiegel”correspondent changed and transformed ashe moved away from the obligatoryappointments of the news. His physicalappearance changed in parallel fashion. Butthe dimension of the guru, the prophet, thatsome seem to perceive in his last years, isreductive and inappropriate. Already, aquarter of a century ago, after the fall of theRed Khmer, a small group of Cambodiansadoringly described the arrival of a foreignerat the temples of Angkor, “One day a tall,handsome, friendly Italian, dressed in white,appeared”. It was the tale of an apparition.Instead, it is true that for many yearsTiziano Terzani walked the by-ways of Asiawith increasingly less baggage, progressivelyabandoning even the shelves of books hehad accumulated. It is as if he had lived twolives, with two professions and two differentfaces. Even his coloured inks find a newprofession when they are no longernecessary for taking notes destined fornewspapers, they do not disappear. On thecontrary, they progressively become thetools for painting the watercolours of hisfinal days.

TERZANI: THE MAN, THE JOURNALIST, THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITER

30 YEARS OF REPORTAGES

Tiziano Terzani, writer and journalist, was an expert onthe Asian continent and one of the most internationallyprestigious Italian journalists, author of news reports andstories translated around the world. Terzani was born inFlorence in 1938. After obtaining a Law degree and aMaster’s degree in International Affairs at ColombiaUniversity in New York, where he studied Chinese histo-ry and culture, he began a 30-year collaboration with theGerman weekly “Der Spiegel” as their Asian correspon-dent. In 1975, he was one of the few journalists to remainin Saigon where he witnessed the communists takepower. Based on this experience, he wrote Giai Phong!The Fall and Liberation of Saigon which was translatedinto various languages. After four years in Hong Kong,he moved with his family to Beijing. One of the first cor-respondents to return to Phnom Penh after theVietnamese action in Cambodia, he tells of his trip inHolocaust in Kambodscha. In 1984, he was arrested for“counterrevolutionary activities” and then deported,bringing an end to his long stay in China. His intenseChinese experience was the basis for The ForbiddenDoor. He next lived in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok.He was in Siberia when he heard the news of the anti-Gorbachev coup d’etat and his long journey to Moscowwould become Good Night, Mr. Lenin, a firsthand testi-mony to the fall of the Soviet empire. In 1994, he movedto India with his wife, Angela Staude, and their two chil-dren. The following year, he wrote A Fortune-Teller ToldMe, chronicle of a year lived as a correspondent in Asiawithout ever taking an airplane. The book became a best-seller and was followed by In Asia, published in ’98. In’97 Terzani won the prestigious “Luigi Barzini Award forSpecial Correspondent.” After the attacks on 11September 2001 and the military attack in Afghanistanby the USA, he joined the debate on terrorism, publish-ing Letters Against the War and began a “peace pilgrim-age” to schools and public appearances, lending his sup-port to the cause of Emergency, together with GinoStrada. In March 2004, his last book One More Ride onthe Carousel. A Journey Through the Good and Evil ofOur Times, was published. In this book he speaks of him-self, of his illness (he died on 28 July at his house inOrsigna) and of how he saw the world.

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TIZIANO TERZANIREVIEWED BY VINCENZO COTTINELLI

PORTFOLIO

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Above, Terzani in Calcutta in ‘97 for the marriage of his son Folco. Below, the journalist is in New Delhi in the offices of “Der Spiegel”.

On the page next to Bellosguardo, next to an attractive ancient statue of a woman passing by

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On the page next to Terzani in Calcutta, photo reporter in the crowd. Above, in his Tuscan villa in Orsigna, in the usual emersion into the crowds of the

presentation of one of his books and elegantly dressed in white as usual in front of a glass case

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THESE PICTURES are taken from the book Tiziano Terzani: ritratto di un amico, by Vincenzo Cottinelli,edited by A. Vallardi. The volume collects 120 photos in black and white that provide a very full portraitof Terzani. The images represent Terzani the man and father, the journalist and passionate defender ofthe ideas of peace, the student of the Orient and narrator of his diverse realities

Terzani public and private: at the marriage of his daughter Saskia in Florence, immersed in reading and, below, face to face with his son Folco

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