Tragedy of Childhood

Alberto Savinio is the pseudonym of Andrea de Chirico, brother of the surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, and this work, written in 1945, exemplifies the word surrealist. With the perspective of a child, Savinio recalls incidents that are on the border between reality and fantasy. Moments of illness, of trying to elicit satisfying answers from grownups, the joy of caring for an injured bird matched by the frustration of having it fly away, the desolation of being ignored by grownup friends, and the absurdities he saw at the theater--all are lyrically portrayed but juxtaposed against elements of the grotesque.