Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone

by Stanislao G. Pugliese

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.

Genres: Biography, Italy, Nonfiction, Italian Literature

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2009

Reviews

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

fairly through treatment of silone the author, the southern hillbilly, the mystic, the communist, the misanthrope, the inspiration.
has nice pictures and bibliography
discusses his novels and essays and his marriages and work in exile and in Italy.
for lovers of "bread and wine" and his other writings.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now I feel bad that I've never read any Ignazio Silone; apparently he's like John Steinbeck and George Orwell rolled into one. This was an interesting biography; it's academic, and sometimes a bit disjointed, but Silone's life--spurred to political activism by his childhood in an Italian peasant village, but so opposed to authoritarianism that he had just as many problems with the communists as the fascists--is compelling.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Bitter Spring' by Stanislao Pugliese (professor of Italian Studies and History at Hofstra University) was a revelation for me. I had literally NO idea who Ignazio Silone was, so it was total learning experience. He is however, considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century in Italy with a political back story second to none. Born in the Abruzzo region (Pescina) in 1900 the defining moment in his life was the Avezzano earthquake on Jan. 8, 1915 in south central Italy. The shock had a moment magnitude of 6.7 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme) and caused around 30,000 direct fatalities including his mother. Secondino Tranqulli (his birth name) was orphaned along with his younger brother Romulo and sent to live in Rome under the care of a priest, Father Don Luigi Orione, one of the most influential people in his life it would seem. He renamed himself in a Spanish prison in 1923 for 'Communist' activities!

This is long and fairly complicated tale but becomes increasingly compelling as the author skillfully merges Silone's writing with his 'career' such as it was. The incredible poverty of his hometown and the Mezzogiorno (southern Italy) in the first half of the 20th century is hard to imagine today and of course the earthquake took what little they had. Silone was certainly 'radicalized' by his encounter with the tragedy and the general state of Italy as it veered into Fascism in the post-WW1 period. He became a Socialist and then a Communist by the mid 1920s helping to found the Communist Party of Italy (PCI). Refusing to follow the Stalinist hard line he was kicked out of the Party in 1930 despite his impeccable anti-Fascist principles. He was driven into exile, mainly in Switzerland (Davos of all places, lol!). His writing career began with 'Fontamara' in 1933, followed by 'Bread and Wine' (1936), and 'The Seed Beneath the Snow' (1941) which together were later called the 'Abruzzo Trilogy'. He wrote several more influential books and many essays generally dealing with social inequities and oppression.

Yet he also became much more spiritual, one of his most famous quotes was: 'I am a Socialist without a Party, a Christian without a Church'. an important essay appeared in 'The God That Failed' (a 1949 collection of six essays by Louis Fischer, André Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, and Richard Wright) in which the common theme is the authors' disillusionment with and abandonment of communism. Silone's essay 'Emergency Exit' is called by the author 'one of the most important memoirs of the 20th century'. He also compares and contrasts Silone with George Orwell in ways that illuminate their relative contributions. Silone's interactions were often a Who's Who of the Western 'intelligensia' of the 1920s to 1950s anyway. Jean-Paul Sartre (who he eviscerated), Simone Weil, Albert Camus, Edmund Wilson and many others. So he fades off into old age and dies in 1978, a highly respected writer, thinker and icon of the resistance to tyranny--both Communist and Fascist. And he clearly recognized their affinity to one another.

Then over a decade later, in the 1990s, two Italian historians Dario Biocca and Mauro Canali, found documents that implied that Silone had acted as an informant for the Fascist police from 1919 until 1930. The two historians published the results of their research in a work titled 'L'informatore. Silone, i comunisti e la polizia'. As Pugliese says their claims were met with 'skepticism, incredulity and shock'. The backlash and counter-debate was furious with many highly respected historians refuting the claims, including Mimmo Franzinelli, a historian who is considered an expert on the OVRA (Mussolini's secret police). Two camps developed--the 'colpevolisti' and the 'innocentisi', againt and for Silone. I can't really make a fair evaluation but the author does a fine job in presenting the case for and against and even airs other theories like the 'Triple Agent' idea. He concludes in at some level of ambiguity, stating that we must look in the 'no-man's land between hagiography and the archive'.

You often look for the words in the text that link to the title in a book--in this one it was the last two words written 'only to drink from a bitter spring'. Referring to the peasant character in one of Silone's books--the peasants where he grew up were always his primary focus. There is extensive footnoting, an excellent bibliography, and Prologue that warranted a re-read after finishing the book. The Farar, Strauss and Giroux hardback edition (2009) I had (from a free pile of books) was physically one of the finest books I might have read, the paper and font totally pleasing. So at that 4.5 stars and will round up!

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned of Silone when in a college seminar titled Politics and the Novel his Bread and Wine was assigned reading. It has been so very long and I find that with time I’ve forgotten the book. Nevertheless, a certain feeling that I had enjoyed it lingered.

Upon encountering this biography, I resolved to revisit this author. The biography, although a bit repetitive and disorganized, does a creditable job of portraying this man of many turns.