Fenoglio, Beppe

▪ Italian author

born March 1, 1922, Alba, Italy

died Feb. 18, 1963, Turin

      Italian novelist who wrote of the struggle against fascism and Nazism during World War II. Much of his best work was not published until after his death.

      Fenoglio spent most of his life in Alba. His studies at the University of Turin were cut short by service in the army, and after World War II he became a wine merchant.

      As a writer, Fenoglio was a realist with affinities in both subject matter and style to Cesare Pavese (Pavese, Cesare), Ernest Hemingway (Hemingway, Ernest), and John Dos Passos (Dos Passos, John). His first book, I ventitré giorni della città di Alba (1952; “The 23 Days of the City of Alba”), includes 12 short stories about the partisans of his native town. His first novel, La malora (1954; Ruin), shows the difficult and harsh lives of peasants near Alba. The last of Fenoglio's works to be published in his lifetime was Primavera di bellezza (1959; “Spring of Beauty”), which he said he originally wrote in English, then translated into Italian.

      Fenoglio's admirers increased in numbers after his death, in large part as a result of his posthumously published works, which include Italian translations of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and his best-known book, the novel Il partigiano Johnny (1968; Johnny the Partisan). An English translation of Una questione privata (1970) entitled A Private Matter was published in 1988.

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