Tiziano Terzani - Snapshots by Tiziano Terzani during his travels to China (1980-1984), Russia (1991) and Vietnam (1970s)

Tiziano Terzani (Florence 1938-Orsigna 2004) was a journalist, writer, but above all “traveler”, as he liked to define himself. He collaborated with some of the most important Italian newspapers (Il Giorno, Il Messaggero, L’Espresso, La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera) and was a correspondent for German weekly magazine Der Spiegel from 1971 to 1996. Deep knowledge of the East, in which he spent much of his life, he captured the social and cultural changes, through numerous writings and thousands of photographs. Since the beginning of his career, Terzani has been fascinated by China and tried several times to settle there. He initially moved to “his gates” in Hong Kong in 1975, then to Beijing from 1980 to 1984, where he took the name of Deng Tiannuo. He was therefore the first Western correspondent to be allowed to work in China. 

In 1984, his stay was interrupted with arrest and expulsion by the Chinese government on charges of espionage, theft of national treasures, and counter-revolutionary activities: an expedient for getting rid of an inconvenient reporter. In Terzani’s photographs taken in China, we can capture the passion for this country, from the smallest hutong (alley) to the most majestic temple. Furthermore, Terzani manages to explore both the changes and contradictions that China was experiencing and its traditional roots. “You know that China had never been photographed. This is the thing that struck us when we arrived [...] for this [...] I photographed a lot.” - T. Terzani, edited by F. Terzani, The end is my beginning, (Milan: Longanesi, 2006).

© Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Fondo Terzani