(1989-91)

“Panta” is a project to which Pier Vittorio Tondelli dedicated himself with the same enthusiasm and precision that had always distinguished his literary projects. For Tondelli “Panta” represented the possibility to undertake a dialogue between narrators that ” … is born from the comparison and the commitment of a group of Italian authors : that are between thirty and forty years old ; that have made their debut during the Eighties ; and that are recognised as ‘young writers’ or ‘new narrators’ “.

The overall size of the magazine’s projection stage gives testimony to the many meetings that had been organised on a very wide basis of invitation. The outcome of those meetings is explained in the letter sent to the narrators on 12 June 1989. Tondelli wrote, “The project is taking shape ; on the one side, in a generational front regarding the authors and on the other side, in a series of strong ‘themes’ to be dealt with. We plan to put out three issues a year, each with a monographic theme. We wish to discuss all of this with you ; to hear your opinions, your suggestions and your potential commitment to writing and projecting the subsequent issues”.

The writer was always clear regarding this aspect. Before the magazine came out in November of 1989 – in response to certain erroneous statements in an article entitled “Carta Paga” [Paper Pays] in the weekly magazine “Panorama” – he wrote, “I was not nominated by any director of “Panta” because the magazine – which comes out next January – does not follow a traditional type of direction but uses co-ordinators, who for the first issue are, besides myself, Elisabetta Rasy and Alain Elkann. None of us receives a salary for this work but a simple and laughable reimbursement of our costs. “Panta” is absolutely not the Italian version of “Granta”. As a publishing project, it is very different : it tends towards the generation of thirty to forty year olds ; it has a monographic or thematic structure ; and it is ‘managed’ by various alternating editors.

The first issue, with the theme “La Paura” [Fear], was published at the end of January 1990. Tondelli contributed to the section “Biblioteca” [Library] with “Viaggio a Grasse” [Journey to Grasse], dedicated to Frederic Prokosch, whom the writer had wanted to interview. Even though Prokosch had died unexpectedly, Tondelli took the trip anyway and brought back a selection of interesting photographs that he had shot to accompany the text.
In November of 1992 – approximately a year after Tondelli’s death – the magazine published a monographic issue on him, which was edited by Fulvio Panzeri with numerous contributions, including those by ; Umberto Eco, Oreste Del Buono, Enrico Palandri, Fernanda Pivano, Aldo Tagliaferri, Gilberto Severini, Enzo Siciliano and François Wahl.