Winter Journey

by Attilio Bertolucci

Poetry. Translated here into English for the first time in its entirety by Nicholas Benson, Bertolucci's WINTER JOURNEY (Viaggio d'inverno, 1971) traces the author's nervous anxiety and the broader afflictions of an emergent consumer society at the Italian midcentury. Increasing social proximity illuminates a persistent isolation, relieved only-tenuously-by the bonds of family and friendship. In a country then recovering from the effects of nationalism, it is significant that a major poet would avoid the pitfalls of populism and paternalism, just as his writing avoids antagonism and aestheticism. Bertolucci's meditations on the effects of the Fascist ventennio can be read as a subtle critique of such divisions, which weakened resistance to the regime and enabled the country's later fragmentation.

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2005

About the author

Attilio Bertolucci (18 November 1911 – 14 June 2000) was an Italian poet and writer. He is father to film directors Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Bertolucci was born at San Lazzaro (province of Parma), to a family of agricultural bourgeoisie of northern Italy. He began to write poems very early. In 1928 he collaborated to the Gazzetta di Parma, where his friend Cesare Zavattini was editor-in-chief. The following year Bertolucci published his first poetical collection, Sirio.

In 1931 he started his studies of law in the University of Parma, which however he left soon in favour of artistical and literary studies. In the following year his work Fuochi di Novembre gained him the praise of Italian poets like Eugenio Montale.

In 1951 he moved to Rome. His marriage with Ninetta Giovanardi had given him two sons, Bernardo (1940-2018) and Giuseppe (1947-2012), both future film directors. In 1951 he also published La capanna indiana and won the Viareggio Prize for literature. In this period he cemented a friendship with Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Viaggio d'inverno ("Winter Voyage") of 1971 is one of Bertolucci's finest works. This work saw a noteworthy change of style in Bertolucci's poetry: while the first works were, according to Franco Fortini, characterized by "the choice of a humble language for pastoral situations", his works were more complex and marked by unsureness feelings. From 1975, together with Enzo Siciliano and Alberto Moravia he directed the literary review Nuovi Argomenti. He won another Viareggio Prize for the narrative poem Camera da letto (1984–1988).

His last work was La lucertola di Casarola (1997), a collection of works from his youth and other unpublished poems.

Bertolucci died in Rome in 2000.