Cesare Pavese was born at the family’s vacation farmhouse in 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, a small village in the Langhe region of southern Piedmont. Although his family resided in Turin, where his father was a functionary in the city’s law courts, the countryside and rural population of his birthplace serve as the foundation of much of his mature poetry and narrative. The opening poem of his first major publication,
Lavorare stanca[Hard Labor] (1936), “I mari del sud” [South Seas], tells the story of the return of the free-spirited “giant” cousin to his native village in the Langhe hills after having circled the world. The poem contains nearly all the dominant themes of Pavese’s entire artistic production: the juxtaposition of the contrasting landscapes of the city and…
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Citation: Pietralunga, Mark. "Cesare Pavese". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 December 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3509, accessed 21 November 2024.]
