Antonio Balsemin
In cleaning my office, I came upon the business card of Antonio Balsemin, a card he handed me after he gave my son and me a ride in his taxi during our late summer 2001 stay in Rome. It was a very enjoyable taxi ride. He is outgoing, talkative and clearly a man of many interests. I let him do the majority of the talking since my Italian is passable but has no depth.
Though he happens to drive to be a Roman tassista, really he’s a writer. His passion in life is writing in his native dialect from the Veneto region of Italy. One gets the sense that it is partly to preserve his own past, but it also has a larger purpose.
He realizes as many people do, that in the past hundred or so years, the diversity of local cultures is disappearing as individual cultures and languages die. However, he does something about it. By writing in his own language he keeps one tree alive as the larger cultural deforestation goes on.
Check him out at: http://www.antoniobalsemin.it and check out an article written about him the same month he gave us a cab ride and a fascinating conversation.
