Events and Victims

by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Jon Curley (Editor)

This work by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, edited and with a detailed introduction by Jon Curley, features a never-before-published short story by this famous anarchist and victim of legal persecution, xenophobia, and condemnation for his radical politics. That fact that Vanzetti, an Italian immigrant, learned to write in English while jailed for a capital crime is remarkable enough. What is even more astonishing is that he chose to use his new language skills to write creatively, inventing a parable about worker exploitation and environmental disaster that is as relevant today as it was almost one hundred years ago when this prisoner took up his pen. “Events and Victims” allows Vanzetti a new literary and historical voice, an important document that narrates the very injustice that its author suffered and fought. In a time of assault on immigrants, dissidents, radicals, and the environment, “Events and Victims” is as timely as ever.

48 pages, Pamphlet

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

Despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence, people convicted Italian-American anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti with Nicola Sacco of a double murder and sentenced them to death in 1921 and despite worldwide protests against the verdict executed the two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_a...

Reviews

[Marius Jaan]

Feature is a short fiction story by Vanzetti of Sacco and Vanzetti martyrdom. The Editor’s framing is significantly more interesting than the story itself.

As the Editor indicates, that Vanzetti could learn English so quickly, and to the point of wanting to write a short story to move his passions and concerns forward, is beyond impressive. The story itself is not terribly interesting; that the story exists IS interesting. The story’s position as an artifact, as a result, of what one man facing death in prison is able to do, communicate, and focus on is impressive.

[Carrie Laben · Rating 3 out of 5]

More interesting as an historic document than as a work of fiction, but still surprisingly good considering the circumstances of its composition. Unfortunately the introduction, needed to explain those circumstances, is even more overwritten than the story and with less excuse.

[Lama · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ For this women's sake, for the sake of their child, Alfred was unjust to his fellow men. Worse than wicked, he was unconscious of the urge which compelled him to seek the happiness of his beloved ones at the expense of other men's happiness.”