Vasco Pratolini

Pratolini, Vasco 

Born Oct. 19, 1913, in Florence. Italian writer.

Pratolini published his first stories in 1938. A participant in the anti-Fascist Resistance, he has been an outstanding figure in postwar literary neorealism. His first novellas and novels included Via dei Magazzini (1941; Russian translation, 1958), The District (1945; Russian translation, 1963), and A Family Chronicle (1947; Russian translation, 1958). His best book, A Tale of Poor Lovers (1947; Russian translation, 1956), deals with the life of a working-class street in Florence in the 1920’s; in it he created a comprehensive portrait of the people and depicted heroic communists fighting against fascism. Pratolini’s historical novel Metello (1955; Russian translation, 1958) describes the emergence and development of consciousness in the Italian working class. The novel The Constancy of Reason (1963; Russian translation, 1964) deals with the attitudes of progressive young people in contemporary Italy. In the books Extravagance (1960) and Allegory and Derision (1966), Pratolini abandoned neorealism.

WORKS

La città ha i miei trent’anni. Milan, 1967.

REFERENCES

Potapova, Z. M. Neorealizm v ital’ianskoi literature. Moscow, 1961. Pages 97–131.
Akimenko, A. A. “Formirovanie lichnosti molodogo cheloveka v romane V. Pratolini ‘Postoianstvo razuma.’” In Problema lichnosti v sovremennykh zarubezhnykh literaturakh. Leningrad, 1971.
Asor Rosa, A. V. Pratolini. Rome, 1958. (Contains bibliography.)
Longobardi, F. V. Pratolini. [Milan, 1964.] (Contains bibliography.)

I. K. POLUIAKHTOVA