Biography

Born in Chioggia, a small town south of Venice, in 1971, Renzo Cremona published his first book, Foreste Sensoriali, in January 1993. Then he decided to move out of the official channels poetry was spread by to start a long process of experimentation which brought him to both English and Latin.

He has graduated in Chinese, Modern Greek and Portuguese from the University of Venice and is currently working as a language consultant and a teacher. He has translated from Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Georgian, Classical Manchu, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Greek, Portuguese and Shetlandic.

His many travels have allowed him to discover authors unknown in Italy, such as Ingrid Jonker and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. In 2002 Cremona published Letters from the Slaughterhouse (Lettere dal Mattatoio) which was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 11th Edition of International Prize of Poetry and Literature “Nuove Lettere” (Naples, March 2003), just one of many recognitions. Also in 2002 he published The Parchment of Mutations (La Pergamena delle Mutazioni) which earned him important prizes. 2004 saw the publication of Chronicles from the Centre of the Night (Cronache dal centro della notte) a book of prose poems that also received wide critical recognition. In March 2006 Renzo Cremona published an original prose-poetry novel, All Without A Name (Tutti senza nome), which was awarded the joint 1st Prize at the National Literary Prize Campania - Gesualdo Bufalino (Caserta, September 2007).

In June 2007 Renzo Cremona published Sixteen weeks (Sedici settimane), a collection of short poems written in 2003 that earned him the 1st Prize at the 10th Edition of the National Poetry Prize Surrentinum (Messina, March 2009) and the 2nd Prize at the 18th National Literary Prize Garcia Lorca (Turin, April 2008). The book is a bilingual text with Modern Greek translations by Keti Màraka.
In October 2007 The canon of tea (Il canone del tè), a short collection of dramatic monologues written in the form of prose poems whose atmosphere is defined by the presence of different tea qualities. The book was awarded the 2nd Prize at the 10th International Literary Prize Mondolibro (Rome) in April 2008.
In November 2007 Edizioni Eva published Renzo Cremona's first all-English book of prose poems Plays, which includes the performances Mystery Play and Miracle Play as they were executed during the Finnish tour which took place in spring 2009.

In June 2008 Renzo Cremona published Suites, a book containing six suites written between 1991 and 1992, which is also a bilingual text with Modern Greek translations by Keti Màraka.
In January 2010 Edizioni del Leone released About vices and virtues (Dei vizi e delle virtù), which earned the author the Special Jury Prize at the 12th International Literary Prize Val di Vara - Alessandra Marziale (Massa Carrara, June 2010) and the Special Jury Prize at the 24th International Literary Prize Cinque Terre - Sirio Guerrieri (Porto Venere, La Spezia, October 2010).
Renzo Cremona has also written a series of original and innovative haiku poems in Italian and Latin which appeared in the books Swimming-pools (Piscine), Oz and Tundra, published in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively.

For recognitions see the page on this site dedicated to the author's awards for poetry and fiction.

Poems, short stories and translations by Renzo Cremona have been published in regional and national literary magazines such as Poesia (Crocetti Editions), Corrente Alternata, aut and Il Foglio Volante - La Flugfolio. For published and unpublished translations by the author, see the page on this site dedicated to his translations.

In association with artists from different backgrounds, Renzo Cremona, who also participated in the 13th International Poetry Festival in Genua in June 2007 and the Dis Da Litteratura in Domat/Ems (Switzerland) in November 2008, has been performing his poetry live around Italy for years giving public readings of his works.

Some of Renzo Cremona's works have been translated into Esperanto by Amerigo Iannacone, Dutch and Frisian by Alpita de Jong, Greek by Keti Maraka, Romanian by Elena Pîrvu, Rumantsch Grischun by Benedetto Vigne and Shetlandic by Christine De Luca. Some of his poems are currently being translated into Portuguese.
His entire literary production from 1993 to 2013 has been object of a Master's Degree dissertation conducted by Francesca Rossi, author of the thesis, in the University of Venice in June 2015.
Some of Renzo Cremona's works are available on the international website www.italian-poetry.org, which is dedicated to Italian Contemporary Poetry from the late 20th century to the present.