The Department of French and Italian presents a lecture (in Italian) with Gabriele Pedullà, Belknap Visiting Fellow in the Humanities Council and Department of French and Italian (Spring 2018) , Epica classica, epicamoderna: la Resistenza di Beppe Fenoglio .
In Italy, the partisan-writer Beppe Fenoglio (1922-1963) is increasingly considered one of the greatest Italian novelists of the second half of twentieth century – if not the greatest. On the other hand, he remains a minor figure outside national borders, as often happens with Italian “cultural mavericks,” who obtain international recognition only after a great deal of time (like Giambattista Vico or Giacomo Leopardi, for instance). In this case, the limited circulation in England and the US is especially sad because Fenoglio was imbued of British culture, to the point that he even wrote one of his two masterpieces – Il libro di Johnny (The Book of Johnny) – first in a very personal English and only later in Italian. But Fenoglio has many weapons in his arsenal with which to win the international attention he deserves, and one above all: a true, unmistakable epic power, maybe the rarest of literary virtues in contemporary fiction.
