Vasco Pratolini

Vasco Pratolini (right) with the Italian writer Luigi Silori, 1959

Vasco Pratolini (19 October 1913 – 12 January 1991) was an Italian writer of the 20th century.

Biography

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 (Улица дель Корно) 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 (1947), Cronache di poveri amanti (1947) and Metello (1955).

He died in Rome in 1991.

Works

Il tappeto verde (1941)
Via de' magazzini (1941)
Le amiche (1943)
Il quartiere (1943), translated as The Naked Streets (USA) or A Tale of Santa Croce (UK)
Cronaca familiare (1947), translated as "Family Chronicle" or Two Brothers
Cronache di poveri amanti (1947), translated as A Tale of Two Poor Lovers
Diario sentimentale (1947)
Mestiere da vagabondo, 1947 (collection of stories)
Un eroe del nostro tempo (1947), translated in 1951 by Eric Mosbacher as "A Hero of Our Time"
Le ragazze di San Frediano (1949), translated as The Girls of Sanfrediano
La domenica della povera gente (1952)
Lungo viaggio di Natale (1954)
Metello (1955), translated by Raymond Rosenthal in 1968
Lo scialo (1960)
La costanza della ragione (1963), translated as Bruno Santini. A Novel
Allegoria e derisione (1966)
La mia città ha trent'anni (1967)
Il mannello di Natascia (1985)

Recipients of the Viareggio Prize

1930s	Anselmo Bucci – Lorenzo Viani (1930) Corrado Tumiati (1931) Antonino Foschini (1932) Achille Campanile (1933) Raffaele Calzini (1934) Mario Massa – Stefano Pirandello (1935) Riccardo Bacchelli (1936) Guelfo Civinini (1937) Vittorio Giovanni Rossi – Enrico Pea (1938) Arnaldo Frateili – Orio Vergani – Maria Bellonci (1939)

1940s	Silvio Micheli – Umberto Saba (1946) • Antonio Gramsci (1947) • Aldo Palazzeschi – Elsa Morante – Sibilla Aleramo (1948) • Arturo Carlo Jemolo – Renata Viganò (1949)

1950s	Francesco Jovine – Carlo Bernari (1950) • Domenico Rea (1951) • Tommaso Fiore (1952) • Carlo Emilio Gadda (1953) • Rocco Scotellaro (1954) • Vasco Pratolini (1955) • Carlo Levi – Gianna Manzini (1956) • Italo Calvino – Pier Paolo Pasolini (1957) • Ernesto de Martino (1958) • Marino Moretti (1959)

1960s	Giovanni Battista Angioletti (1960) • Alberto Moravia (1961) • Giorgio Bassani (1962) • Antonio Delfini – Sergio Solmi (1963) • Giuseppe Berto (1964) • Goffredo Parise (1965) • Ottiero Ottieri – Alfonso Gatto (1966) • Raffaello Brignetti (1967) • Libero Bigiaretti (1968) • Fulvio Tomizza (1969)

1970s	Nello Saito (1970) • Ugo Attardi (1971) • Romano Bilenchi (1972) • Achille Campanile (1973) • Clotilde Marghieri (1974) • Paolo Volponi (1975) • Mario Tobino – Dario Bellezza – Sergio Solmi (1976) • Davide Lajolo (1977) • Antonio Altomonte – Mario Luzi (1978) • Giorgio Manganelli (1979)

1980s	Stefano Terra (1980) • Enzo Siciliano (1981) • Primo Levi (1982) • Giuliana Morandini (1983) • Gina Lagorio – Bruno Gentili (1984) • Manlio Cancogni (1985) • Marisa Volpi (1986) • Mario Spinella (1987) • Rosetta Loy (1988) • Salvatore Mannuzzu (1989)

1990s	Luisa Adorno – Cesare Viviani – Maurizio Calvesi (1990) • Antonio Debenedetti (1991) • Luigi Malerba (1992) • Alessandro Baricco (1993) • Antonio Tabucchi (1994) • Maurizio Maggiani – Elio Pagliarani (1995) • Ermanno Rea – Alda Merini (1996) • Claudio Piersanti – Franca Grisoni – Corrado Stajano (1997) • Giorgio Pressburger – Michele Sovente – Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Ernesto Franco (1999)

2000s	Giorgio van Straten – Sandro Veronesi (2000) • Niccolò Ammaniti – Michele Ranchetti – Giorgio Pestelli (2001) • Fleur Jaeggy – Jolanda Insana – Alfonso Berardinelli (2002) • Giuseppe Montesano (2003) • Edoardo Albinati – Andrea Tagliapietra – Livia Livi (2004) • Raffaele La Capria – Alberto Arbasino – Milo de Angelis (2005) • Gianni Celati – Giovanni Agosti – Giuseppe Conte – Roberto Saviano (2006) • Filippo Tuena – Paolo Mauri – Silvia Bre – Simona Baldanzi – Paolo Colagrande – Paolo Fallai (2007) • Francesca Sanvitale – Miguel Gotor – Eugenio De Signoribus (2008) • Edith Bruck – Adriano Prosperi – Ennio Cavalli (2009)

2010s	Nicola Lagioia – Michele Emmer – Pierluigi Cappello (2010) Alessandro Mari – Mario Lavagetto – Gian Mario Villalta (2011) Nicola Gardini – Franco Lo Piparo – Antonella Anedda (2012)

References

External links

Biography (Italian)
Martha King's English translation of Cronaca familiare as Family Chronicle.

Authority control	WorldCat Identities VIAF: 27090398 LCCN: n79021110 ISNI: 0000 0001 2125 2029 GND: 118793233 SUDOC: 029098696 BNF: cb120795055 (data) ULAN: 500341779 ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\041377 BNE: XX1076599

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