Ennio Dinacci

Psychologist and psychotherapist, Ennio Dinacci has always cultivated writing, both non-fiction and fiction, as his deep need. His cultural interests are many, from Psychology, with particular reference to the analytical one of C. G. Jung, to the Sciences of Tradition (yoga and astrology, in primis); from politics to the History of Religions.

Constantly in search of authenticity is found in these roads, both on a personal and social level, he often found in texts and cults apparently outdated by history, a conceptual and pragmatic depth superior to many theories and deductions, which from those original inspirations had started, claiming modern primogeniture.

Classically trained, he obtained a degree in psychology, qualifying to practice as a psychologist and psychotherapist, although this has not become his professional activity. Fascinated by the roads that humanity has developed over the millennia, to evolve even on an individual level, he felt the need to investigate not only what psychotherapy or scientific psychology have developed, but also, with an equal degree of interest, what, long before, schools of thought, both secular and religious, had already indicated as fundamental. From the psychological point of view, he felt himself to be a Jungian, finding in the Master from Zurich not only a sage and a scientist of absolute value, as is evident, but also an example of "exemplary masculinity" that he took as a model, even if within a personal choice of a political type of clear, Marxist inspiration. If we add to this his passion for yoga and a study of astrology, which lasts now for almost half a century, it is easy to understand, how full of contrasts is his intellectual position.

As a non-professional writer, as he is not in any of the areas mentioned, this has not prevented him from devoting himself body and soul to the development of an inner dimension, a personal poetics and a vision, which we could define as an expert, of the themes that typically underlie his most challenging works: first of all the Grail Tetralogy, a work that has required sedimentation of over twenty years of writing, before arriving at the current form.

After several attempts of collaboration for cultural film projects, in agreement with a production company, wrecked like many similar attempts to conceive an art cinema in Italy, and, after a personal crisis, which led him to rewrite from scratch some works previously conceived, in the best case, he judges his youthful writings, both astrological, psychological, or artistic, nothing but "youthful defects"!

At best, they provided material to be completely reworked, in more mature works!

A convinced asserter of self-publication, especially in a country with asphyxiated cultural activity for the arts of the scene, such as Italy, for almost twenty years he has not published anything more, working hard on the Tetralogy of the Grail, his artistic work certainly more important and challenging in absolute, whose drafting began to take shape towards the end of the millennium and the beginning of the "new time". Compared to works of the past centuries on similar themes, the Tetralogy of the Grail does not reiterate mythological or magical scenarios of classical works but claims to renew them, in a strident contrast, almost dramatic, between the archetypal forms of the myths evoked, as a source of inspiration, and the rawness of a narrative, in which is tangible debt to the neorealism of some authors of the Italian theater and cinema.

The Tetralogy of the Grail claims to be one, and perhaps currently the only, Italian Tetralogy on such topics, which refers to the absolute models of art, to give life to an artistic creation with the mind turned to the great themes of mythology or psychology archetypal, but with feet firmly planted in the crudity and physicality of real life. We no longer find heroes and superhuman entities, except in part in the Prologue, but women and men of the people, in flesh and blood, within lives that possess mythological, without adequate inner armor, only the universalistic or archetypal psychological dynamics, as well as the collective character, and not merely private, of the events narrated.

Love and war; private and public; individual and collective intertwine in a composite plot, which serves as a true fresco of contemporaneity, and in which - in the Italian version - national language and dialect are mixed, in an imaginary scenic structure, because it was conceived more for reading than for real representation, however, suspended between material realism and a magical-religious dimension, which supports the dominant dynamics and the subtle threads of the events narrated.

Obviously, the author has also conceived fewer demanding works, but always pursuing the creation of artistic works of quality! Even in the brilliant comedy "Delta Project" or in the fairy tale "C'era una volta in Campania" it is possible to see this need at work. Just think of the debt that this fairy tale owes to the entire tradition of Italian melodrama!

Without Mascagni, Leoncavallo, or De Simone himself, works such as C'era una volta in Campania would not have been possible at all!

For the author, therefore, writing is not a profession, but the fulfillment of a profound need, even in psychodynamic terms, just like his imperious need to deal with certain topics or to make art for the pleasure and sense of freedom of "making art"!

That said, he feels more like an artisan than an artist, but if he really has to justify the reason for the need that led him to write the stories published here, his most authentic answer is that it had become impossible for him "not to give an autonomous life to these inner characters, who claimed to be able to exist on an objective level of reality and no longer of mere fantasy"! The characters of the Grail Tetralogy, just like the Teresa of the fairy tale or Professor John and the candid Luna of Delta Project, had simply reached a "psychic autonomy" concerning the author" that necessitated an independent birth, with an autonomous life. Or, to put it another way, it was no longer "thinkable" for the author, " a world in which these stories had not been written!"

It is enough to think of his most complex work, the Tetralogy, which, with alternating fortunes, engaged him for almost twenty years, before reaching its present form: born, from the initial Novel, initially conceived independently and titled "The Shattering of the Grail", for the author lacked a contribution of Italian art on such themes with a system of great classical and modern work together, represented here and of which the author has tried to fill, within the limits of his abilities. It is obvious, even in this case, the debt to Richard Wagner, both as an artist and as an example of the man. But it is the whole German art and culture to be a constant source of inspiration for the genesis of the handmade works presented here.

The other most successful works, in his artistic journey, can all be found on Amazon: the Novel titled, "The Shattering of the Grail", from which he then originated the Tetralogy; the fairy tale "Once upon a time in Campania", which the author likes to define a popular melodrama, in the form of a fairy tale; a theatrical work that, behind the formal structure of a simple story hides, in fact, a narrative structure fully reentering, for a verse in the Popular Theater, for another, in the tradition of Italian Melodrama for the structure and musicality of the representation. For the musical pieces evoked, the Author has mainly referred to the most ancient pieces of the ancient Neapolitan tradition, here assembled, with the text, to give life to a very suggestive Opera both for the reading and for a possible public staging, in theater or on electronic support.

"Delta Project", constitutes, to date, the only concession of the Author to the brilliant comedy... and the work of Scene, closer to a film script than theatrical.

In course of publication is the work with the provisional title, "Dying in Naples": a popular story, on the interweaving of legality and illegality in the city of Campania, which fierce criticism of class differences in modern society, of which the capital of Campania is a scenario as familiar as natural.

Over the years, and for the specific historical phase, also and above all of Italy, his country of origin, and where he lives, he uses a very personal style of dramaturgical writing, which he loves to define as hybrid and which is characterized by a style that aims to merge, in a single text, several modes of fruition. His works have therefore the objective of being works of art on the reading level, but can also be used, with a few technical additions, for different forms of stage representation, such as theater and, above all, film. The writing, redefined in this way, gives up the technical characteristics of cinematographic scripts, which make the reading fragmentary, preferring visual drafting, on a scenic basis, optimal for every kind of fruition. The writing surrenders every tinsel from a "working tool" of a production, gaining in readability, or, as he likes to say, in consumption of the artistic work comparable to an inner cinema, but also easily translatable into the form of a scene, more or fewer elaborate.

He is currently working on a book on Astrology and one on the Individuation Process: topics that, together with art and political passion, constitute the fulcrum of his activity as a writer.

If he will ever give them to the press, we can imagine that even in these areas will try to provide knowledge tools heterodox, just like his contrasting personality