22 October 2024

The restless life of Tiziano Terzani

A journey to the man behind the myth: Tiziano Terzani

Published by Ediciclo Editore in May 2024, Tiziano Terzani mi disse. Nei luoghi delle radici di un esploratore irrequieto by Jacopo Storni takes us into the heart of Tuscany, among the places and people who marked the life of the celebrated journalist and writer Tiziano Terzani. Though Terzani is known above all for his bond with Asia, this book guides us through his deepest roots, exploring his most intimate, personal side.

With a preface by his wife Angela Terzani Staude and an original photographic reportage by Majlend Bramo, Storni’s work is not simply a biography but a genuine pilgrimage through the places that formed Terzani.

Malmantile, where his grandparents were stonecutters; Monticelli, the working-class Florence neighborhood where he was born and raised; then Pisa and its Scuola Normale, where his desire to defend and give voice to the oppressed first took shape; Vinci, where he married Angela; and finally Orsigna, where he chose to let his body go. These are only some of the stops on Storni’s journey — one that reveals a Terzani unknown to most: a man who, for all his fame as a great explorer, always kept a deep and unbreakable bond with the land he came from.

The book follows the streets where Terzani first began to question the world, and life itself — a path that dismantles the clichés of the guru-writer and reveals the essence of a restless yet curious man, forever in search of an elsewhere and at the same time profoundly tied to his origins.

Portrait of Florentine journalist Jacopo Storni, author of the book on Tiziano Terzani — *Jacopo Storni, Ph: Cristina Andolcetti*

Meeting the author: between words and photographs

Jacopo Storni, a well-known reporter for Corriere della Sera and Redattore Sociale, built the book on previously unpublished interviews with Terzani’s friends and family, who recount episodes from his childhood, adolescence, and adult life, offering a rare perspective on the great journalist.

Storni sought out the personal stories told by those who knew Terzani in his formative years — his high-school classmates, his trusted homeopath, his neighbors, even his first girlfriend. Through these voices, the reader discovers a restless, curious Terzani, a man in constant search of meaning yet deeply rooted in his own history and origins. It is, in the end, an invitation to reflect not only on Terzani’s life but on more universal themes: roots, belonging, and the search for the self.