Love letters spark a legal tussle
The passionate and previously secret love letters of Italian novelist Italo Calvino took center stage in a court battle Friday as his widow and heirs sued Italy’s leading newspaper for publishing extracts.
Calvino, author of “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler,” wrote more than 300 letters to actress Elsa de Giorgi during their affair from 1955 to 1958.
Although some of the correspondence had been printed in the past, the love letters had not been seen until extracts were published by the newspaper Corriere della Sera last month, setting off a legal dispute over control of the passages.
The publication of the letters was swiftly blocked by a court injunction from Calvino’s widow, Esther Singer, who was not married to the author when the letters were written.
“These are private letters which have to do with the most intimate personality of the writer,” Singer’s lawyer, Vittorio Ripa di Meana, said. “The letters are subject to copyright. Both the correspondents are dead, but the heirs gave no approval.”
On Friday, the court heard Corriere’s arguments against the injunction, although the judge has not ruled on the case, the news agency ANSA reported.
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