Elio Vittorini, Conversazione in Sicilia [Conversation in Sicily]

Claudio Mazzola (University of Washington)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1941

Places

Italy (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Elio Vittorini, a towering figure of twentieth-century Italian literature, started working on what would become his most famous novel,

Conversazione in Sicilia

[Conversation in Sicily], in September of 1937. By this time, he had long left his native Sicily and was on the verge of making a big move from Florence to Milan, the center of Italy’s rapidly developing publishing industry. At the age of thirty, Vittorini was a fully formed intellectual with very clear antifascist views and a deep love for American literature (Hemingway, Faulkner, et al.) that would greatly influence his future writings.

Conversazione in Sicilia

was originally published in installments (from April 1938 until April 1939) in the literary magazine

Letteratura

. The novel then appeared as a book in 1941 in a limited…

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3144 words

Citation: Mazzola, Claudio. "Conversazione in Sicilia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 April 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40571, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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