Beppe Fenoglio

Beppe Fenoglio, late 1950s

Beppe Fenoglio (born March 1, 1922 in Alba , † February 18, 1963 in Turin ; actually Giuseppe Fenoglio ) was an Italian writer who only gained broad recognition after his death. While he survived the time as a young partisan in the fight against fascism , he died of lung cancer at the age of 40. His novel Johnny the Partisan , published in 1968, is considered to be his main work and “most important literary adaptation of the Italian Resistance” . In addition to the armed anti-fascist resistance and the brutalization associated with it (which not only applies to the merciless executions carried out on both sides), Fenoglio's homeland Langhe , the rural hilly country between Turin and the Ligurian Alps , is a main theme of his prose.

life and work

The son of a socialist butcher from Alba was able to attend the high school there, although he stuttered a little. Sometimes the boy worked in the asparagus fields. He loved the English language and practiced translating from an early age. His teachers include Leonardo Cocito , who was hanged by the Germans in 1944, and Pietro Chiodi , a prisoner in a German concentration camp . From 1940 until he began his military service in 1943, Fenoglio studied literature in Turin. In 1944 he joined various partisan units that fought against the (local and German) fascists in the Langhe. In this context, he was also involved in the short-lived "free" Repubblica partigiana di Alba (October 10 to November 12, 1944), which later became the title giver of his first book.

Fenoglio survived the war unwounded. After temporarily resuming his literature studies, he took the opportunity in 1947 to work as a foreign correspondent for a winery in Alba due to his excellent knowledge of English. This post gave him enough leeway for his own literary attempts, which led him to a sparse, but even "artful in dramatic moments" language that reminded Peter Henning of Camus . Michael Schweizer called it - in no way derogatory - "old-fashioned". Fenoglio made his debut in 1949 with the volume of short stories The 23 Days of the City of Alba . The story Das Unglück , which focuses on the harshness of being a peasant, followed in 1954. The publication of various manuscripts for novels mostly failed due to some adversities. For this Fenoglio came to the train with translations, for example of Coleridge's ballad of the old sailor .

For Italo Calvino , Fenoglio, who had suffered from asthma for years, succeeded with the posthumously published (unfinished) novel Eine Privatsache der Resistance novel , “which all young writers of the post-war years wanted to write, of which they dreamed, so that their efforts in Fenoglio their late fulfillment and Have experienced coronation ”.

In 1960 Fenoglio received the Prato Prize for the only novel published during his lifetime, Primavera di Bellezza . In the same year he married Luciana Bombardi, who soon gave birth to daughter Margherita. In 1962 her husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis after heightened asthmatic attacks, but a little later he was diagnosed with lung cancer, from which he died in 1963.

In 2005 the University of Turin declared him an honorary doctorate.

On October 8, 2014, the asteroid (7935) Beppefenoglio was named after him.

Works

• I ventitré giorni della città di Alba (The 23 days of the city of Alba), short stories, Turin 1952
• La malora (Misfortune), short story, Turin 1954
• Primavera di bellezza (originally written in English: Spring Beauty ), Roman, Turin 1959

published posthumously

• Un giorno di fuoco , Turin 1963
• Una questione privata , unfinished novel, Turin 1963, German A private matter , Zurich 1968
• Il partigiano Johnny (The Partisan Johnny), Roman, Turin 1968
• La paga del sabato , Turin 1969, German A fine method , Zurich 1971
• Un Fenoglio alla prima guerra mondiale , Turin 1973
• La voce nella tempesta , 1974
• L'affare dell'anima e altri racconti , Turin 1980
• La sposa bambina , tratto dalla raccolta “Un giorno di fuoco”, Turin 1988
• L'imboscata , Turin 1992
• Appunti partigiani 1944-1945 , Turin 1994
• The business with the soul , stories, Berlin 1997
• Quaderno di traduzioni , Turin 2000
• Lettere 1940-1962 (letters), Turin 2002
• Una crociera agli antipodi e altri racconti fantastici , Turin 2003
• Epigrammi , Turin 2005
• Tutti i racconti , Turin 2007

Film adaptations

• A dream of love and death ( Una questione privata ), directed by Alberto Negrin , 1991
• Il partigiano Johnny . Director: Guido Chiesa , 2000
• Una questione privata , directed by Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani , 2017

literature

• Gina Lagorio: Fenoglio , Florence 1970
• Walter Mauro: Invito alla lettura di Fenoglio , Milan 1972
• Francesco De Nicola: Fenoglio partigiano e scrittore , Rome 1976
• Gino Rizzo: Su Fenoglio tra filologia e critica , Lecce 1976
• Giuseppe Grassano: La critica e Fenoglio , Bologna 1978
• Davide Lajolo: Fenoglio, un guerriero di Cromwell sulle colline delle Langhe , Milan 1978
• Maria Corti: Bette Fenoglio, storia di un “continuum” narrativo , Padua 1980
• MA Grignani: Bette Fenoglio , Florence 1981
• Gina Lagorio: Bette Fenoglio, Camposampiero , 1983
• Roberto Bigazzi: Fenoglio: personaggi e narratori , Rome 1983
• GL Beccaria: La guerra e gli asfodeli, Romanzo e vocazione epica di Bette Fenoglio , Milan 1984
• Gino Rizzo (ed.): Fenoglio a Lecce (Congress files), Florence 1984
• Bodo Guthmüller: Beppe Fenoglio and the "Twenty-three days of the city of Alba" , in: Alba libera. The Partisan Republic of Alba, October 10 to November 2, 1944 , two lectures on the occasion of an exhibition, Marburg 1986 (Writings of the University Library of Marburg, 30)
• Elisabetta Soletti: Bette Fenoglio , Milan 1987
• Mark F. Pietralunga: Beppe Fenoglio and English Literature: A Study of the Writer As Translator , University of California, 1987
• Eduardo Saccone: Fenoglio, I testi, L'opera , Turin 1988
• Francesco De Nicola: Introduzione a Fenoglio , Rome 1989
• Anne Begenat-Neuschäfer (Ed.): Alchimie famigliari: studi su Beppe e Marisa Fenoglio (collection of articles), Frankfurt / Main 2006
• Roberto Mosena: L'interprete e Fenoglio. Letture di Davide Lajolo , Rome 2009
• Roberto Mosena: Fenoglio. L'immagine dell'acqua , Rome 2009

Web links

• Literature by and about Beppe Fenoglio in the catalog of the German National Library
• Beppe Fenoglio in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Munich 1988.
2. ↑ Conrad Lay ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 13, 2011. 
3. ↑ Time online , accessed on July 13, 2011.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Coincidentally morally correct and militarily sensible . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 22, 1998.
5. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Munich 1988.
6. ↑ For Peter Henning , accessed on July 13, 2011, “a book about the impossibility of forgetting inner horrors. A book about the rebellion of youth against the monotony of bourgeois existence - a novel of mellow, harrowing beauty, in which Fenoglio undoubtedly reveals more about himself than in any other book. "