A powerful World War II novel about a young soldier joining the anti-German resistance in occupied Italy, this classic—which touches on everything from wartime dangers and adventures to desperate love—is regarded as one of the greatest works of twentieth-century Italian literature. Milton—the name is a nom de guerre—is a member of a partisan band battling Italian Fascists and German forces in the chaotic last years of World War II. Before the war Milton was a student of English literature and a lover of poetry. He was in love with a girl, too, Fulvia, and from time to time she’d invite him over to her rich family’s fine house and have him read to her. Now, in the thick of war, he discovers that handsome Giorgio, his friend and fellow partisan, was sleeping with Fulvia at the time. Furious with jealousy, Milton hastens to have it out with Giorgio, but Giorgio has been captured by the Germans. A Private Affair tells the story of Milton’s mad quest—through mud and fog, rain and terror, while barely evading enemy patrols—to rescue his friend, the better to settle a grudge from a lost world of peace. Beppe Fenoglio’s masterpiece is a peerless story of the violent heart and world.

Fenoglio's last work, the short «partisan novel» entitled A Private Matter, was published in April of 1963, two months after the author's death. Had he been alive, Fenoglio would have been happy to witness the enthusiasm which greeted the publication of his book. Among those who read the novel and praised it most highly we find Italo Calvino: «And it was the most solitary of us who succeeded in writing the novel we all wanted to write about the war (...) Only now thanks to Fenoglio, we can say that a season was completed, and only now we are certain that it really existed: the season that goes from Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947) to Una questione privata (1963).»

Translated by John Shepley 2,000 Italian partisans took the city of Alba on 10/10/44, and 200 lost it to the Fascists on 2/11/44. Among the bedraggled fighters in this historic siege was Beppe Fenoglio, who later made his writing debut with this collection of stories based on his experiences in the Italian resistance movement. Marking the 50th anniversary of the book's original publication, this translation celebrates Fenoglio's direct and intimate portrait of soldiers who bumbled their way into playing a crucial role in the Allied victory of WWII.

Publisher description

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.

This bibliography lists English-language translations of twentieth-century Italian literature published chiefly in book form between 1929 and 1997, encompassing fiction, poetry, plays, screenplays, librettos, journals and diaries, and correspondence.

'Rich. . . eclectic. . . a feast' Telegraph This landmark collection brings together forty writers that reflect over a hundred years of Italy's vibrant and diverse short story tradition, from the birth of the modern nation to the end of the twentieth century. Poets, journalists, visual artists, musicians, editors, critics, teachers, scientists, politicians, translators: the writers that inhabit these pages represent a dynamic cross section of Italian society, their powerful voices resonating through regional landscapes, private passions and dramatic political events. This wide-ranging selection curated by Jhumpa Lahiri includes well known authors such as Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante and Luigi Pirandello alongside many captivating new discoveries. More than a third of the stories featured in this volume have been translated into English for the first time, several of them by Lahiri herself.

This book examines the translations carried out by Italian novelist Beppe Fenoglio, one of the most important Italian writers of the twentieth century. It stems from the acknowledgement that Beppe Fenoglio’s translations have not been examined in the political, cultural and ideological context in which they were produced, but have been dismissed as a purely linguistic exercise. The author examines Fenoglio’s translations as culturally and ideologically informed artistic expressions, in which Fenoglio was able to give voice to his dissent towards the mainstream ideology and poetics of his times, often choosing authors and characters with whom he identified, such as Shakespeare, Milton and Marlowe. The interaction between the theories of Translation Studies, Literary Theory and Adaptation Studies foregrounds the centrality of the role of the translator, showing how Fenoglio’s ideology and poetics were clearly visible both in the selection of the texts he translated and in his translation strategies.