Set and written in Fascist Italy, this book exposes that regime's use of brute force for the body and lies for the mind. Through the story of the once exiled Pietro Spina, Italy comes alive with priests and peasants, students and revolutionaries, all on the brink of war.

Set and written in Fascist Italy, this book exposes that regime's use of brute force for the body and lies for the mind. Through the story of the once exiled Pietro Spina, Italy comes alive with priests and peasants, students and revolutionaries, all on the brink of war.

One of the 20th century's essential novels depicting Fascism's rise in Italy. Set and written in Fascist Italy, this book exposes that regime's use of brute force for the body and lies for the mind. Through the story of the once-exiled Pietro Spina, Italy comes alive with priests and peasants, students and revolutionaries, all on the brink of war.

One of the major figures of twentieth-century European literature, Ignazio Silone (1900–78) is the subject of this award-winning new biography by the noted Italian historian Stanislao G. Pugliese. A founding member of the Italian Communist Party, Silone took up writing only after being expelled from the PCI and garnered immediate success with his first book, Fontamara, the most influential and widely translated work of antifascism in the 1930s. In World War II, the U.S. Army printed unauthorized versions of it, along with Silone's Bread and Wine, and distributed them throughout Italy during the country's Nazi occupation. During the cold war, he was an outspoken opponent of Soviet oppression and was twice considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Twenty years after his death, Silone was the object of controversy when reports arose indicating that he had been an informant for the Fascist police. Pugliese's biography, the most comprehensive work on Silone by far and the first full-length biography to be published in English, evaluates all the evidence and paints a portrait of a complex figure whose life and work bear themes with contemporary relevance and resonance. Bitter Spring, the winner of the 2008 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History, is a memorable biography of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers against totalitarianism in all its forms, set amid one of the most troubled moments in modern history.

Throughout his life, the internationally known novelist, short story writer, and journalist, Ignazio Silone (1900-1978) struggled indomitably for social justice. In this book, Maria Nicolai Paynter discusses the many controversial issues surrounding Silone and his writing, analysing in detail his intellectual and political convictions and assesses the artistic achievement and stylistic development in his works. Paynter argues that a profound authenticity is at the core of Silone's writing and that his tragic vision emanates from a concepte of heroism based not on pride and self-serving defiance but rather on moral courage and integrity. Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism and his concept of ironic myth provide the theoretical framework through which Paynter guides the reader to an understanding of Silone's particular brand of realism and his unique message. Ignazio Silone: Beyond the Tragic Visionis a new, expanded version in English of an earlier Italian-language book which won the Premio Internazionale Letterario Ignazio Silone. It is the first comprehensive book in English on Silone's life, his writings, and their critical reception.

"Silone's masterpiece, Bread and Wine, introduces the semiautobiographical character Pietro Spina, an anti-Fascist revolutionary who returns to his homeland after fifteen years in exile. He seeks refuge among the Abruzzo peasants by posing as the priest Don Paolo Spada.".

This classic work and crucial document of the Cold War brings together essays by six of the most important writers of the twentieth century, including André Gide, Richard Wright, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, and Louis Fischer, on their conversion to and subsequent disillusionment with communism. In describing their own experiences, the authors illustrate the fate of leftism around the world.