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First edition | |
Author | Luciano Bianciardi |
---|---|
Original title | La vita agra |
Translator | Eric Mosbacher |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian |
Publisher | Rizzoli, Bompiani |
Publication date | 1962 |
Pages | 200 pp. |
La vita agra, known in English-speaking countries as It's a Hard Life, is a novel by Luciano Bianciardi published in 1962 by Rizzoli. It became a best-seller in Italy and it is considered one of the most important novels in contemporary Italian literature.
Luciano Bianciardi was an Italian journalist, translator and writer of short stories and novels.
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1962.
RCS MediaGroup S.p.A., based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV. It is also one of the leading operators in the advertisement sales & distribution markets.
In 1962, when the novel was released it was praised by the public and the critics. It became a best-seller and was translated into English, French, German and Spanish. Italo Calvino wrote a review in which he regarded the novel positively and compared it to other works of the so-called letteratura industriale (Industrial literature), a current which spread at the beginning of the Italian economic miracle, such as Paolo Volponi's Memoriale and Giovanni Arpino's Una nuvola d'ira. He praised the all-encompassing language that succeeds masterfully in expressing and representing the industrial reality in a more complex way, even if he saw some weaknesses connected to the book's uncontainable autobiography that is limited, in his opinion, to a "private anarchist protest". [1]
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy (1952–1959), the Cosmicomics collection of short stories (1965), and the novels Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a winter's night a traveler (1979).
The Italian economic miracle or the Italian economic boom is the term used by historians, economists and the mass media to designate the prolonged period of strong economic growth in Italy after the Second World War from the 1950s to the late 1960s, and in particular the years from 1950 to 1963. This phase of Italian history represented not only a cornerstone in the economic and social development of the country—which was transformed from a poor, mainly rural, nation into a global industrial power—but also a period of momentous change in Italian society and culture. As summed up by one historian, by the end of the 1970s, "social security coverage had been made comprehensive and relatively generous. The material standard of living had vastly improved for the great majority of the population."
Paolo Volponi was an Italian writer, poet and politician.
The novel was also made into a 1964 film of the same name, directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Ugo Tognazzi and Giovanna Ralli.
La vita agra is a 1964 Italian film by director Carlo Lizzani, based on Luciano Bianciardi's novel of the same name.
Carlo Lizzani was an Italian film director, screenwriter and critic.
Ugo Tognazzi was an Italian film, TV, and theatre actor, director, and screenwriter.
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
Viking Press is an American publishing company now owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquired by the Penguin Group in 1975.
Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda was an Italian writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island [i.e. Sardinia] and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general". She was the first Italian woman to receive the prize.
Ignazio Silone was the pseudonym of Secondino Tranquilli, a political leader, Italian novelist, and short-story writer, world-famous during World War II for his powerful anti-Fascist novels. He was nominated for the Nobel prize for literature ten times.
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle, was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti (1929) and for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista, the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are Agostino, filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo, filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris ; La Noia (Boredom), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964 and La ciociara, filmed by Vittorio de Sica as Two Women (1960). Cedric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La Noia.
William Fense Weaver was an English language translator of modern Italian literature.
Mario Praz KBE was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, The Romantic Agony (1933), was a comprehensive survey of the erotic and morbid themes that characterized European authors of the late 18th and 19th centuries. See Femme fatale for a reference of one of his chapters. The book was written and published first in Italian as La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica in 1930 [see Wikipedia page on Mario Praz in Italian], and the most recent edition was published in Firenze: Sansoni, 1996.
The Strega Prize is the most prestigious Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction by an Italian author and first published between 1 May of the previous year and 30 April.
Ennio Flaiano was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, and drama critic. Best known for his work with Federico Fellini, Flaiano co-wrote ten screenplays with the Italian director, including La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960), and 8½.
Andrea De Carlo is an Italian novelist.
Carlo Cassola was an influential Italian novelist and essayist. His novel La Ragazza di Bube (1960), which received the Strega Prize, was adapted into a film of the same name by Luigi Comencini in 1963.
Luciano Vincenzoni was an Italian screenwriter, known as the "script doctor". He wrote for some 65 films between 1954 and 2000.
Vasco Pratolini was an Italian writer of the 20th century. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.
Ribolla is a village in southern Tuscany, a frazione of the comune of Roccastrada, in the province of Grosseto. At the time of the 2001 census its population amounted to 2,115.
Hermeticism in poetry, or hermetic poetry, is a form of obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school, wherein the language and imagery are subjective, and where the suggestive power of the sound of words is as important as their meaning. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.
Alfonso Gatto was an Italian author. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century and a major exponent of hermetic poetry.
Eric Mosbacher was an English journalist and translator from Italian, French, German and Spanish. He translated work by Ignazio Silone and Sigmund Freud.
Isabel Madeleine Quigly FRSL was a writer, translator and film critic. She was born in Spain and educated at Godolphin School, Salisbury and Newnham College, Cambridge. In her early career, she worked for Penguin Books and Red Cross Geneva. Between 1956 and 1966, she was film critic of The Spectator. She served as literary editor of The Tablet from 1985 to 1997. She has also contributed to numerous journals and newspapers, and served on the jury of various literary prizes including the Booker Prize jury in 1986.
Francesco Orlando was an Italian literary critic, essayist and university professor specialized in French literature.