Synopses & Reviews
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 Silones Bread and Wine, and distributed them throughout Italy during the countrys 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. Puglieses 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 centurys greatest writers against totalitarianism in all its forms, set amid one of the most troubled moments in modern history.
Stanislao G. Pugliese is a professor of modern European history at Hofstra University. A former fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, and the University of Oxford, he is the author of Carlo Rosselli: Socialist Heretic and Antifascist Exile and the translator of Silones Memoir from a Swiss Prison. A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
Winner of the 2008 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History
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 Silones Bread and Wine, and distributed them throughout Italy during the countrys 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. Puglieses 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 is a memorable biography of one of the twentieth centurys greatest writers against totalitarianism in all its forms, set amid one of the most troubled moments in modern history. “In this major study, Pugliese interweaves vivid anecdote, insightful commentary, and historical fact to produce a life story of the utmost power and consequence.”Millicent Marcus, Chair of the Department of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University
"One of the many virtues of Stanislao Pugliese's astute biography is that the author makes us understand that it's impossible to render simple judgments about those accusations. Pugliese, who has written two previous books about Italian antifascism, persuasively identifies Silone as 'an enigmatic yet representative figure of the twentieth-century intellectual swimming in the rough seas of history and ideology' . . . Pugliese's judicious narrative does not devote an undue amount of space to Silone's private life or psychological makeup, but the biography captures with telling details a meditative, skeptical and ironic man, deeply rooted despite all his cosmopolitan experience in a peasant culture resigned to disappointment in an imperfect world. This cogent portrait makes it easy to understand why the writer in his later years was increasingly drawn to the quiet spirituality of those who sought to live in personal harmony with God, reflected in his play The Story of a Humble Christian and in his close study of Simone Weil's writings."Wendy Smith, Los Angeles Times
"Ignazio Silone, who had many aliases as an underground Communist, adopted that name in 1923 in a Spanish prison. When he was born in 1900 in the Abruzzo, he was christened Secondino Tranquilli. His family had a social position slightly above that of the cafoni: His father was a small landowner, his mother a weaver. When Secondino was 11, his father died. Four years later, his mother was killed in a massive earthquake; Secondino dug her body out of the ruins with his own hands. The orphan then had a succession of, as he later put it, 'three essential experiences: poverty, religion, and communism.' During World War II, Silone was drawn back into the political struggle against fascism and Nazism, helping to establish the Italian Socialist Party's foreign office in Zurich. 'From there,' Stanislao G. Pugliese writes in his thoroughly researched and judiciously sympathetic biography, Bitter Spring, 'Silone worked with Allen Dulles of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of the CIA) in coordinating assistance to the anti-Fascist Resistance working within Italy." In 1944, with Benito Mussolini and the fascists no longer in power, Silone finally returned to his homeland."Robert K. Landers, The Wall Street Journal
“In this major study, Pugliese interweaves vivid anecdote, insightful commentary, and historical fact to produce a life story of the utmost power and consequence.”Millicent Marcus, Chair of the Department of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University
“This is a remarkable work. Its clear and compelling style, expert scholarship, and profound sensitivity combine to make Bitter Spring indispensable reading for all who are seriously interested in Silones life and times.”Maria Nicolai Paynter, Professor of Italian, Hunter College, and author of Ignazio Silone: Beyond the Tragic Vision
“Puglieses biography retrieves Silones complex life and times with careful scholarship, exemplary fairness, and deep sympathy.”Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University
“Puglieses analysis of Silone is as astutely sensitive as his subject, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, whose devotion to political justice is bestirred by the quest for spiritual salvation.”John Patrick Diggins, author of Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America
“Bitter Spring resonates with historical understanding and human compassion.”Valdo Spini, President, Circolo Rosselli Foundation
“Pugliese has written a wonderfully engaging and illuminating biography of t
Review
Praise for Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone
Winner of the 2008 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History
“In this major study, Pugliese interweaves vivid anecdote, insightful commentary, and historical fact to produce a life story of the utmost power and consequence.”—Millicent Marcus, Chair of the Department of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University
“This is a remarkable work. Its clear and compelling style, expert scholarship, and
profound sensitivity combine to make Bitter Spring indispensable reading for all who are seriously interested in Silones life and times.”—Maria Nicolai Paynter, Professor of Italian, Hunter College, and author of Ignazio Silone: Beyond the Tragic Vision
“Puglieses biography retrieves Silones complex life and times with careful scholarship,
exemplary fairness, and deep sympathy.”—Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University
“Puglieses analysis of Silone is as astutely sensitive as his subject, one of the great
writers of the twentieth century, whose devotion to political justice is bestirred by the quest for spiritual salvation.”—John Patrick Diggins, author of Mussolini and Fascism:
The View from America
“Bitter Spring resonates with historical understanding and human compassion.”—Valdo Spini, President, Circolo Rosselli Foundation
“Pugliese has written a wonderfully engaging and illuminating biography of this very difficult man, Ignazio Silone—a great novelist, a tortured political militant, and, for many of us, a moral hero. ‘There is no single truth about Silone, his wife, Darina, said, ‘only many truths. This book is a truthful account of the many truths.” —Michael Walzer, coeditor of Dissent magazine
“Pugliese finally gives readers a mature account of a life that produced some of the twentieth centurys most powerful and widely translated literary art and political commentary. A much-needed work of literary and political scholarship.”—Bryce Christensen, Booklist (starred review)
“The first full English-language biography of the celebrated Italian novelist . . . rigorously argued . . . passionate and wise.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] solid and engaging biography”—Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
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 Silones Bread and Wine, and distributed them throughout Italy during the countrys 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. Puglieses 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 centurys greatest writers against totalitarianism in all its forms, set amid one of the most troubled moments in modern history.
Synopsis
Ignazio Silone, a founding member of the Italian Communist Party, is the subject of this compelling new biography. "Bitter Spring" chronicles Silone's defiant stance against totalitarianism in all its forms.
About the Author
Stanislao G. Pugliese is a professor of modern European history at Hofstra University. A former fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, and the University of Oxford, he is the author of Carlo Rosselli: Socialist Heretic and Antifascist Exile and the translator of Silones Memoir from a Swiss Prison.