Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone

Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone

Stanislao G. Pugliese

Language: English

Pages: 448

ISBN: 0374113483

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


One of the major figures of twentieth-century European literature, Ignazio Silone (1900-78) is the subject of this award-winning new biography by the noted Italian historian Stanislao G. Pugliese. A founding member of the Italian Communist Party, Silone took up writing only after being expelled from the PCI and garnered immediate success with his first book, Fontamara, the most influential and widely translated work of antifascism in the 1930s. In World War II, the U.S. Army printed unauthorized versions of it, along with Silone's Bread and Wine, and distributed them throughout Italy during the country's Nazi occupation. During the cold war, he was an outspoken opponent of Soviet oppression and was twice considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Twenty years after his death, Silone was the object of controversy when reports arose indicating that he had been an informant for the Fascist police. Pugliese's biography, the most comprehensive work on Silone by far and the first full-length biography to be published in English, evaluates all the evidence and paints a portrait of a complex figure whose life and work bear themes with contemporary relevance and resonance. Bitter Spring, the winner of the 2008 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History, is a memorable biography of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers against totalitarianism in all its forms, set amid one of the most troubled moments in modern history.

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Stuck.” The effect on personal identity was sweeping. Silone compared it to the case of a monk entering the monastery, requiring “a break with his family and every private relationship, and his installation in a separate world.” Silone’s works are referred to by their English titles. I have used Eric Mosbacher’s translations (revised by Darina Silone) in The Abruzzo Trilogy for Silone’s first three novels (Fontamara, Bread and Wine, and The Seed Beneath the Snow) and Harvey Fergusson’s 1968.

Critica Sociale, November 20, 1965; reprinted in ISRS, vol. 2, p. 1273. 16 “I saw once again”: “Restare se stessi,” Il Resto di Carlino, January 20, 1963; reprinted in ISRS, vol. 2, pp. 1264–65. Darina Silone recounts the episode in Colloqui, pp. 88–89. 17 “if the spring is not clear”: Rocco De Donatis in A Handful of Blackberries, p. 168. ONE    SAINTS AND STONECUTTERS 20 “The wolves would come down”: A Handful of Blackberries, p. 192. 20 “Eventually a voice”: Bread and Wine, p. 461.

Authorities. With hearth ablaze and food prepared, the Holy Family could find refuge in any humble home of the Mezzogiorno that night. For a young boy like Silone, the tale exerted considerable influence. On Christmas Eve it was impossible to sleep, not in expectation of extravagant gifts (an orange was considered a rare present) but because the Holy Family might at any time suddenly appear on one’s threshold. Besides that thrill of anticipation, the tale inculcated a respect and solidarity for.

Diocleziano Giardini, custodian of the town’s history and the memory of Silone, was my guide in Pescina. Mille grazie to the people of Pescina who shared with me their generosity of spirit with warm welcomes on my winter visits. With the sharing of St. Anthony’s bread on January 17, we became, as Silone would have said, (cum pane) companions. A different version of chapter eight appeared as “The Double Bind of Ignazio Silone: Between Archive and Hagiography,” in Culture, Censorship and the State.

. . . whatever happens happens, I will accept it. If you only knew how one suffers here! . . . If you can do something for me, please do it. Recommend me to some lady who comes to visit you; consult with the superior, to whom I send my most humble greetings. Affectionate kisses, Secondo Romolo was treated for his broken shoulder in a hospital and, under the patronage of Queen Elena, sent to a school in Rome. With the collapse of the family home, Silone lived in the poorest and “least.

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