Skip to main content

Carlo Levi Biography

Carlo Levi

(Turin, 1902-Rome, 1975) Italian writer and painter.With a degree in Medicine, he soon devoted himself to cultivating broader cultural interests.As a painter, he stood out for the first time in 1923, and six years later he joined the "Gruppo dei Sei" in Turin.He was one of the young people gathered around Pietro Gobetti, and later joined "Giustizia e Libertà".

He was confined to politics in 1935-1936, and later moved to Paris.From 1943 on he participated in the Resistance movement, and was director of newspapers in Florence and Rome.Later, he combined his work as a journalist and painting (in 1945 he exhibited in his own room at the Venice Biennale).In 1963 and in 1968 he was elected senator of the Republic, as an independent, on the list of communists.

His first literary work, Christ stopped at Eboli ( Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , 1945), evokes his experiences during confinement, when discover, in a passionate and lacerating way, the peasant world of southern Italy.The narrative (which served to reconsider the view of the southern world from the north) illustrates a solidly structured mythical story.Levi's realistic and neo-baroque prose confronts two contradictory ways of approaching peasant civilization: the fascination for the primitive and the false and manipulative mythologization of that scenario.The work contributed to the dissemination of the "southern question", which would be the fundamental theme of almost all his later works.

He raised in a very personal way the problem of the human presence in the world and its permanent risk of crisis, taking into account the profound reality of symbols and archetypes, which E.de Martino studied during the same years.After Paura della libertà (1946), written before the war, came L'orlogio (1950). Le parole sono pietre (1955) is also set in the South, specifically in Sicily, and the climax of the play is the unforgettable episode of Carlo Levi's visit to the mother of a murdered trade unionist, Salvatore Carnevale.

Il future à un cuore antico (1956) and La doppia notte dei tigli (1959) are dedicated to the Soviet Union and Germany, respectively.In Tutto il miele è finito (1965) he takes up the theme of the South, the island of Sardinia.The figures of the peasants and the shepherds come to the fore and become the true characters of a myth, which the author always tries to transform into rational, systematic, scientific and socialist achievements, with a prose in which, however , there are elements of great emotional intensity that reflect his fascination for primal presences.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Johann Tobias Beck Biography

Johann Tobias Beck (Balingen, 1804-Tübingen, 1878) German Protestant theologian.Professor in Basel and preacher in Tübingen (1843), he opposed Baur's school a realistic inspiration more in line with the text of the Scriptures.

Godfrey of Bouillon Biography

Godfrey de Bouillon Knight of the First Crusade, creator of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Baisy, Brabant, c.1061-Jerusalem, 1100).He was Duke of Lower Lorraine (Netherlands) and a faithful ally of the Emperor Henry IV, whom he had helped in his struggles against Rudolph of Swabia and against Pope Gregory VII.When Pope Urban II appealed to Christendom for a Crusade to liberate the "Holy Places" from the hands of Islam, Godfrey was one of the first to go (1095).He sold most of his domains to finance his own army, with which he arrived in Constantinople in 1096.He loaned vassal to the Byzantine emperor in exchange for food and troops.And, after his outstanding participation in several victorious battles against the Muslims (Nicaea, Dorilea, Antioch), he became head of the crusaders.These named him king of Jerusalem once the city was taken in 1099; but Godfrey did not admit the title, claiming Christian humility, and changed it to "protector of the Holy Sepulcher." He or...

Jose Maria de Aguirre Biography

José María de Aguirre (Tolosa, 1896- id ., 1933) Spanish writer in the Basque language.Under the pseudonym Xabier de Lizardi , he wrote books of poems ( En el corazón y en los ojos , 1932), a play ( The boy who did not could marry ) and a volume of prose ( Plain Word , 1934).

Elijah Querejeta Biography

Elías Querejeta (Elías Querejeta Gárate; Hernani, 1930-Madrid, 2013) Spanish film producer.He studied chemistry and law, while at the same time he was part of the Real Sociedad de San Sebastián football team, a career he abandoned at the age of 24.He was a regular at the screenings held by the city's film clubs, where he met other young people-Víctor Erice, Antonio Eceiza-who would study at the Official Film School of Madrid. Elías Querejeta In 1961 he founded his first company, Laponia Films, at the same time that he collaborated with other production companies on his first films.After directing several short films, in 1964 he decided to found Elías Querejeta P.C.From his first films, he defined the style he wanted to print in his works, intervening in almost all of them as co-screenwriter, while gathering around him a group of professionals who would guarantee the finish of each film (Luis Cuadrado and Teo Escamilla as directors photography; Primitivo Álvaro, in the produc...

Higuchi Ichiyo Biography

Higuchi Ichiyo (Higuchi Natsuko, Tokyo, 1872- id ., 1896) Japanese poet and novelist.He demonstrated his talent with Rivalry (1895-1896), a work that describes the miserable Tokyo of the suburbs; Also notable are Turbid Images (1895) and The Moon of the Thirteenth Night (1895).

István Széchenyi Biography

István Széchenyi (István Széchenyi, count of Sárvár, called The Great Magyar; Vienna, 1791-Döbling, 1860) Hungarian politician.Austrian army officer (1809-1815), as a deputy in the Diet, he advocated a series of reformist measures: abolition of serfdom and guilds, creation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1825), construction of the suspension bridge of Budapest, founding of a Danube steam navigation company, etc.A supporter of the link with Austria, he was Minister of Works and Communications in the first Batthyány Government.In his book El Crédito (1830) he set out his program of economic development.

Blas Roca Biography

Blas Roca (Manzanillo, Oriente, 1909-Havana, 1987) Cuban politician.Secretary General of the Communist Party of Cuba (1934-1939) and of its successor the Popular Socialist Party (1942-1960), participated in the Cuban revolution.Together with other Castro leaders, he founded the Revolutionary Organizations (1961), which later became the Single Party of the Socialist Revolution (1962) and later the Communist Party of Cuba (1965).He directed the newspaper Hoy (1962-1965) and was president of the National Assembly of People's Power (1976-1979).He is the author of Martí, Radical Revolutionary (1948) and The Foundations of Socialism in Cuba.Clarifications (3 vols.).

green Day Biography

Green Day American rock music group reminiscent of punk, formed in 1988 in Berkeley and made up of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass) and Tre Cool (drums).Billie Joe Armstrong (born 1972 in California) and Mike Dirnt (whose real name is Mike Pritchard, born 1972), residents of the Californian town of Rodeo, formed the band in the late 1980s. Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong had grown up in a family of six siblings, whose father, a trucker and jazz musician, passed away when Billie Joe was ten years; Her mother, a waitress and country fanatic, gave her a year later a guitar that she still owns and plays.For her part, Mike Pritchard was the son of a heroin addict, which led to her being adopted by a couple who, in turn, divorced when Mike was seven.At the age of fifteen, Mike rented a room in Billie Joe's house. Tre Cool, whose real name was Frank Edwin Wright III, was born in 1972 in Germany, and grew up in Wilitis, a town north of San Francisco.Soon he ...

James Ramsay MacDonald Biography

James Ramsay MacDonald (Lossiemouth, Scotland, 1866-at sea, 1937) British politician who was Prime Minister between 1929 and 1935.Of humble origins, he joined the Independent Labor Party in 1894, of the one who would become president.In 1900 he participated in the formation of the Labor Representation Committee, an organization designed to ensure the presence in Parliament of an autonomous group that defended the reformist and egalitarian ideas of the trade union movement. Ramsay MacDonald In 1906 he was elected deputy in the midst of a great electoral success for his party, which changed its name to the Labor Party.He led the parliamentary group from 1911 to 1914, the year in which he did not get re-election due to his pacifist stance in the face of the imminent outbreak of the First World War.Re-elected in 1922 by a Welsh mining district, he became leader of the opposition. In 1924 he became Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of a brief minority government, from ...