Kaputt (novel)

Last updated
Kaputt
Author Curzio Malaparte
TranslatorCesare Foligno
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian
PublisherEditore Casella
Publication date
1944
Published in English
1946
Pages645

Kaputt is a 1944 autobiographical novel by the Italian writer Curzio Malaparte.

Contents

Plot

The book was inspired by Malaparte's experiences as a war correspondent at the Eastern Front of World War II. It presents itself as Malaparte's personal witness account of intense violence and cruelty, but the content is largely fictional. [1]

Reception

The book was an international success. Already at the publication, several European critics received the book's narrator as a fictionalised author persona, and the book as an attempt from Malaparte to position himself after Italy's defeat and his own past as a fascist sympathiser. [1] When the English translation was published in 1946, Kirkus Reviews received it as a true account and called it "a subtly brilliant piece of writing" where Malaparte is "whipping the sensibilities to a sharp awareness of the degradation of Europe, of the utter collapse of morality, integrity, and so on". [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Hope, William (2000). Curzio Malaparte: The Narrative Contract Strained. Market Harborough: Troubador. pp. 82–86. ISBN   1-899293-221.
  2. "Kaputt". Kirkus Reviews . 1 November 1946. Retrieved 8 November 2023.

Further reading