Umberto Saba Author

Umberto Saba was born Umbeto Poli in 1883; by the time of his birth his father had deserted the family. He studied the violin and began writing poetry when he was about seventeen. He attended Dante A'Lighieri in Trieste, then, briefly, its Academy of Commerce and Nautical Science, and later worked for a commercial firm in the city. He was conscripted to the Italian army's infantry in 1908. The next year he marries Carolina Wolfler. Recalled to the army in 1915, he suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized. When he returned to Trieste in 1919 he purchased the bookshop where he was to spend the greater part of his life. His friends included Svevo, Ungaretti, Giacomo Debenedetti and Carlo Levi. Saba was sixty-three when he won his first national literary award, the Viareggio Prize. He died in Gorizia in 1957.