Cesare Pavese

Author profile

born

September 09, 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, Italy

died

August 27, 1950

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction

About this author

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Pavese was born in a small town in which his father, an official, owned property. He attended school and later, university, in Turin. Denied an outlet for his creative powers by Fascist control of literature, Pavese translated many 20th-century U.S. writers in the 1930s and '40s: Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner; a 19th-century writer who influenced him profoundly, Herman Melville (one of his first translations was of Moby Dick); and the Irish novelist James Joyce. He also published criticism, posthumously collected in La letteratura americana e altri saggi (1951; American Literature, Essays and Opinions, 1970). His work probably did more to foster the reading and app...more Pavese was born in a small town in which his father, an official, owned property. He attended school and later, university, in Turin. Denied an outlet for his creative powers by Fascist control of literature, Pavese translated many 20th-century U.S. writers in the 1930s and '40s: Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner; a 19th-century writer who influenced him profoundly, Herman Melville (one of his first translations was of Moby Dick); and the Irish novelist James Joyce. He also published criticism, posthumously collected in La letteratura americana e altri saggi (1951; American Literature, Essays and Opinions, 1970). His work probably did more to foster the reading and appreciation of U.S. writers in Italy than that of any other single man.

A founder and, until his death, an editor of the publishing house of Einaudi, Pavese also edited the anti-Fascist review La Cultura. His work led to his arrest and imprisonment by the government in 1935, an experience later recalled in “Il carcere” (published in Prima che il gallo canti, 1949; in The Political Prisoner, 1955) and the novella Il compagno (1947; The Comrade, 1959). His first volume of lyric poetry, Lavorare stanca (1936; Hard Labour, 1976), followed his release from prison. An initial novella, Paesi tuoi (1941; The Harvesters, 1961), recalled, as many of his works do, the sacred places of childhood. Between 1943 and 1945 he lived with partisans of the anti-Fascist Resistance in the hills of Piedmont.

The bulk of Pavese's work, mostly short stories and novellas, appeared between the end of the war and his death. Partly through the influence of Melville, Pavese became preoccupied with myth, symbol, and archetype. One of his most striking books is Dialoghi con Leucò (1947; Dialogues with Leucò, 1965), poetically written conversations about the human condition. The novel considered his best, La luna e i falò (1950; The Moon and the Bonfires, 1950), is a bleak, yet compassionate story of a hero who tries to find himself by visiting the place in which he grew up. Several other works are notable, especially La bella estate (1949; in The Political Prisoner, 1955). Shortly after receiving the Strega Prize for it, Pavese committed suicide in his hotel room by taking an overdose of pills.
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Books by Cesare Pavese

Average rating: 3.91 · 1,891 ratings · 133 reviews · 83 distinct works

	The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese, Louise Sinclair (Translator) 3.76 avg rating — 532 ratings — published 1950 — 29 editions	My rating:
	La casa in collina 3.62 avg rating — 190 ratings — published 1956 — 10 editions	My rating:
	La bella estate 3.84 avg rating — 144 ratings — published 1949 — 19 editions	My rating:
	Disaffections: Complete Poems by Cesare Pavese, Geoffrey Brock (Translation) 4.31 avg rating — 78 ratings — published 2002 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Il mestiere di vivere: Diario 1935-1950 4.44 avg rating — 106 ratings — published 1953 — 15 editions	My rating:
	The Devil in the Hills by Cesare Pavese, D.D. Paige (Translator), D. D. Paige (Translation) 3.95 avg rating — 77 ratings — published 1948 — 11 editions	My rating:
	The Selected Works by Cesare Pavese, R.W. Flint 4.23 avg rating — 44 ratings — published 1968 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi 4.49 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 1951 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Among Women Only 3.61 avg rating — 77 ratings — published 1949 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Hard Labor 4.31 avg rating — 55 ratings — published 1937 — 6 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Cesare Pavese

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
― Cesare Pavese

tags: inspirational , thought-provoking

82 people liked it

“The great lovers will always be unhappy, because for them love is great and so they ask of their beloved the same intensity of thought that they have for her – otherwise they feel betrayed.”
― Cesare Pavese

40 people liked it

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.
You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
― Cesare Pavese

tags: travel

33 people liked it

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Goodreads Italia: Cosa state leggendo ora? Novembre	50	60	Nov 30, 2011 03:06am
Gigi's Company: Title Game	2334	1152	Jun 01, 2012 07:30am

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Cesare Pavese

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Cesare's Fans (56)

Cesare Pavese

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Quotes by Cesare Pavese

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Books by Cesare Pavese