This Business of Living - 9781412810197

On June 23rd, 1950, Pavese, Italy's greatest modern writerreceived the coveted Strega Award for his novel AmongWomen Only. On August 26th, in a small hotel in his hometown of Turin, he took his own life. Shortly before hisdeath, he methodically destroyed all his private papers.His diary is all that remains and for this the contemporaryreader can be grateful.

Contemporary speculation attributed this tragedy toeither an unhappy love aff air with the American film starConstance Dawling or his growing disillusionment withthe Italian Communist Party. His Diaries, however, reveala man whose art was his only means of repressing thespecter of suicide which had haunted him since childhood:an obsession that fi nally overwhelmed him.

As John Taylor notes, he possessed something muchmore precious than a political theory: a natural sensitivityto the plight and dignity of common people, be they bums,priests, grape-pickers, gas station attendants, offi ce workers,or anonymous girls picked up on the street (though towomen, the author could--as he admitted--be as misogynousas he was aff ectionate). Bitter and incisive, This Businessof Living, is both moving and painful to read and stands withJames Joyce's Letters and Andre Gide's Journals as one ofthe great literary testaments of the twentieth century.

Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), was educatedin Turin. In 1930 he began to contributeessays on American literature to La Cultura,of which he later became editor. In1935 he was imprisoned for anti-fascistactivities. This experience formed thebasis of The Political Prisoner. Between1936 and 1940 nine of his books werepublished in Italy, these included novels,short stories, poetry and essays. Hisbooks have been fi lmed and dramatized, and translated intomany languages.

John Taylor, a frequent contributor to the Times LiterarySupplement, Context, the Yale Review, the Antioch Review, theMichigan Quarterly Review, and Chelsea, has introduced numerousEuropean writers and poets to English readers, often for thefirst time. Some of his works include The Apocalypse Tapestries,Paths to Contemporary French Literature (Volumes 1 and 2) andInto the Heart of European Poetry.