Beppe Severgnini has just spent a year touring Italy, visiting universities and high schools across the country
Beppe Severgnini OBE, one of Italy’s leading journalists, will deliver the 2013 Lucrezia Zaina Bequest Lecture, after spending a year touring the country to assess its future prospects.
Beppe, who has just become the first Italian to be commissioned to write a regular column for the New York Times, is perhaps best known in his home country for his long-standing contribution to leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera. He has also written for the Sunday Times, The Economist and the Financial Times.
Trust in the new generation
He said: “The idea is to explain how important it is for Italy to put its responsibility and trust in the new generation. I’ve been to 100 different places and 50 different universities and high schools over the last year and I saw a much better nation than the one we see on talk shows, or around Parliament.
“Many young people have travelled around Europe, they speak different languages, they have talent and tolerance. They have had to put their boats to sea during the storm and I think it is their time.”
But, although optimistic about the individuals he met, he says he remains “very pessimistic” about the opportunities that a country suffocating under the “red tape industry” can offer them.
The former Massachusetts Institute of Technology writer-in-residence said: “In the last eight years, 395,000 people with university degrees have left Italy and only 50,000 foreigners have come to Italy. That’s one in eight, it’s unhealthy. We’re losing a generation that is leaving and doesn’t want to come back.”
A snapshot of contemporary Italy
The Lucrezia Zaina Bequest Lecture aims to promote Italian culture and language around the world, and is the legacy of Professor Lucrezia Zaina. Professor Zaina joined the University as a French and Italian Lecturer in 1964, becoming head of Italian in the same year and remaining a dynamic and dedicated colleague until her retirement in 1988.
Beppe, who described Liverpool as his “favourite British city”, added: “When people talk about Italy, often they talk about food or fashion or furniture, but I want to talk about a new generation and what they do and what they shouldn’t do. It will be very topical but also fun and lively. It will be a snapshot of contemporary Italy from someone who has been around the country for a whole year to see what is going on.”
The Lucrezia Zaina Bequest Lecture with Beppe Severgnini OBE takes place in the Sherrington Lecture Theatre on Wednesday October 23, from 5.30pm. Tickets are free, but must be reserved and place are limited. Please visit http://www.liv.ac.uk/events/zaina/
