Vasco Pratolini

Who was Vasco Pratolini?

Vasco Pratolini was an Italian writer of the 20th century.

Born in Florence, Pratolini worked at various jobs before entering the literary world thanks to his acquaintance with Elio Vittorini. In 1938 he founded, together with Alfonso Gatto, the magazine Campo di Marte. His work is based on firm political principles and much of it is rooted in the ordinary life and sentiments of ordinary, modest working-class people in Florence.

During World War II he fought with the Italian partisans against the German occupation. After the war he also worked in the cinema, collaborating as screenwriter to films such as Luchino Visconti's Rocco e i suoi fratelli, Roberto Rossellini's Paisà and Nanni Loy's Le quattro giornate di Napoli. In 1954 and 1961 Valerio Zurlini turned two of his novels, Le ragazze di San Frediano and Cronaca familiare, into films.

The Soviet composer Kirill Molchanov produced the Russian-language opera Via del Corno based on an anti-fascist story by Pratolini, to his own Russian libretto in Moscow, 1960.

His most important literary works are the novels Cronaca familiare, Cronache di poveri amanti and Metello.