Elio Vittorini
Elio Vittorini, (b. July 23, 1908, Syracuse, Sicily,
Italy—d. Feb. 13, 1966, Milan), novelist, translator, and
literary critic, the author of outstanding novels of Italian
Neorealism mirroring his country’s experience of fascism and
the social, political, and spiritual agonies of 20th-century
man. With Cesare Pavese he was also a pioneer in the
translation into Italian of English and American writers.
The son of a railroad
employee, Vittorini left school when he was 17, and six
months later he became a road-construction worker in
northern Italy. He then moved to Florence, learned English
while working as a proofreader, and began to publish short
stories in the journal Solaria. He made his living until
1941 by translating the works of such American and English
writers as William Saroyan, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allan Poe,
William Faulkner, Daniel Defoe, and Ernest Hemingway, in
addition to the British poets T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, and
Louis MacNeice.
Vittorini’s first major
novel, Il garofano rosso (written 1933–35, published 1948;
The Red Carnation), while overtly portraying the personal,
scholastic, and sexual problems of an adolescent boy, also
conveys the poisonous political atmosphere of fascism. In
1936 Vittorini began writing his most important novel,
Conversazione in Sicilia (1941, rev. ed. 1965; Eng. trans.,
Conversation in Sicily; U.S. title In Sicily), the clearest
expression of his anti-fascist feelings. The action of the
book is less important than the emotional agony of its hero,
brought on by his constant consciousness of fascism, war,
and the plight of his brothers.
Recognizing the novel’s
power, the fascist government censored its serialization in
Letteratura in 1936–38 and even withdrew an entire issue of
that periodical from circulation. In 1942, after publication
of the book, Vittorini was called in for questioning and
finally was imprisoned in 1943. Released after the German
occupation, he continued to fight fascism through the
Resistance movement.
After the war Vittorini
published the influential politico-cultural periodical Il
Politecnico (1945–47) and later edited the Milan literary
quarterly Il Menaḅ with Italo Calvino. He then became head
of the foreign-literature section of a major Italian
publishing house.
