Aron Hector Schmitz, better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian and Austro-Hungarian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer.
Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic, academic, and recipient of the inaugural 1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo ("Hermeticism"), he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned with futurism. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria.
Secondino Tranquilli, best known by the pseudonym Ignazio Silone, was an Italian politician, novelist, essayist, playwright, and short-story writer, world-famous during World War II for his powerful anti-fascist novels. Considered among the most well-known and read Italian intellectuals in Europe and in the world, his most famous novel, Fontamara, became emblematic for its denunciation of the condition of poverty, injustice, and social oppression of the lower classes, has been translated into numerous languages. From 1946 to 1963, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Alberto Pincherle, known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia, 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 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). Cédric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La noia.
Giovanni Papini was an Italian journalist, essayist, novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, and philosopher. A controversial literary figure of the early and mid-twentieth century, he was the earliest and most enthusiastic representative and promoter of Italian pragmatism. Papini was admired for his writing style and engaged in heated polemics. Involved with avant-garde movements such as futurism and post-decadentism, he moved from one political and philosophical position to another, always dissatisfied and uneasy: he converted from anti-clericalism and atheism to Catholicism, and went from convinced interventionism – before 1915 – to an aversion to war. In the 1930s, after moving from individualism to conservatism, he finally became a fascist, while maintaining an aversion to Nazism.
William Fense Weaver was an English language translator of modern Italian literature.
Mario Praz was an Italian 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 decadent, erotic and morbid themes that characterised European authors of the late 18th and 19th centuries. The book was written and published first in Italian as La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica in 1930; and the most recent edition was published in Florence by Sansoni in 1996.
The Strega Prize is the most important Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction written in the Italian language by an author of any nationality and first published between 1 March of the previous year and 28/29 February.
Ugo Tognazzi was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.
Carlo Cassola was an 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 Rebay, known especially for his work on the poets Giuseppe Ungaretti, and Eugenio Montale, was one of the leading post-war critics of Italian literature in America.
Gianni Celati was an Italian writer, translator, and literary critic.
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.
Luciano Bianciardi was an Italian journalist, translator and writer of short stories and novels.
La vita agra is a 1964 Italian film by director Carlo Lizzani, based on Luciano Bianciardi's novel of the same name.
Eric Mosbacher was an English journalist and translator from Italian, French, German, and Spanish. He translated work by Ignazio Silone and Sigmund Freud.
Francesco Orlando was an Italian literary critic, essayist and university professor specialized in French literature.
Maria Messina was an Italian writer.
The Biblioteca Chelliana is a public library in Grosseto, Italy, founded in 1860 by Giovanni Chelli. In 1865 it became a public library as Biblioteca comunale Chelliana. It currently occupies the Palazzo Mensini built in 1898.
