Bruno Lauzi

• Name — Bruno Lauzi • Born — 8 August 1937 • Birthplace — Asmara, Italian East Africa (now Eritrea) • Died — 24 October 2006 • Place of death — Peschiera Borromeo, Italy • Occupation — * Singer • songwriter • poet • politician • actor • screenwriter • cabaret performer

• Illustration — Lauzi in 1993 Bruno Lauzi was born in Asmara, then part of the Italian East Africa, to a Catholic father, Francesco Lauzi, and a Jewish mother, Laura Nahum. In the 1960s, he moved to Genoa, where he became part of the local music scene and met Gino Paoli, Luigi Tenco and Fabrizio De André. After a spell as song writer for Mia Martini, Georges Moustaki and Ornella Vanoni, Lauzi established himself as a renowned cantautore (singer-songwriter). His biggest hits include "Ritornerai" (1963), "Amore caro amore bello" (1972), "Onda su onda" (1974), and "Genova per noi" (1975). Lauzi's 1969 hit song Arrivano i cinesi (the Chinese are coming) used anti-Chinese racism to criticize Italians who drew political inspiration from the Maoist model, describing them as "getting all yellow," and singing that they would soon turn "small, fast, and mute" if they kept obsessing over their "special book" (Quotations by Chairman Mao Zedong). The album cover for Arriviano i cinesi featured a slant-eyed lemon wearing a Chinese scholar's cap. In the 1980s, he started a political career with the Italian Liberal Party, but without huge success. Suffering from Parkinson disease, he died in Peschiera Borromeo at age 69 from liver cancer. He was a football supporter of U.C. Sampdoria.

• I mari interni ("Internal Seas", 1994) • Riapprodi ("Re-Docks", 1994) • Versi facili ("Easy Verses", 1999) • Esercizi di sguardo ("Exercises of Glance", 2002) • Agli immobili cieli ("To the Still Skies", 2010)

• Della quieta follia dei piemontesi ("On the Quiet Foolery of the Piedmonteses", 1997) • Il caso del pompelmo levigato ("The Case of Polished Grapefruit", 2005) • Tanto domani mi sveglio. Autobiografia in controcanto ("So Tomorrow I Wake Up. Autobiography in Counterpoint", 2006)