Beppe Fenoglio

Who was Beppe Fenoglio?

Beppe Fenoglio was an Italian writer, partisan and translator from English. His major works was published in a critical edition after his death, but controversy remains about his book Il partigiano Johnny, often considered his best work, which was published posthumously in 1968.

The works of Fenoglio have two main themes: the rural world of the Langhe and the partisan war; equally, the writer has two styles: the chronicle and the epos. His first work was in the neorealist style: La paga del sabato

The novel was turned down by Elio Vittorini who advised Fenoglio to carve out stories and then incorporate them into the I ventitré giorni della città di Alba. These stories were a chronicle of the Italian Partisans or of rural life. One of such works was La malora, a long story in the style of Giovanni Verga.

Fenoglio died in Turin, at only 41 years, for a Bronchus cancer.