Fuoco grande (GREAT FIRE) C. Pavese Maratea

" BIG FIRE "

by Cesare Pavese and Bianca Garufi
edited by Mariarosa Masoero
Turin , Einaudi 2003 XLVI-80 pages

The unfinished

The novel “Fuoco grande”, written in alternating chapters by Cesare Pavese and Bianca Garufi in the early months of 1946 and left unfinished at its eleventh chapter, was discovered among Pavese’s papers after his death.
The first edition was published by Einaudi in 1959 at Italo Calvino’s instigation.
Pavese’s chosen title was “Viaggio nel sangue” (“Journey into the Blood”), later changed by the publisher to “Fuoco grande” (“Great Fire”). The title draws on a phrase used by the servant Catina, a Sicilian-Calabrian expression describing difficult situations.
The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Giovanni and Silvia, the two protagonists of a bleak and harrowing story set largely in Maratea, Silvia’s hometown.

The plot
Silvia, a young woman who now lives and works in the city, receives a telegram and must leave suddenly for her hometown, Maratea.
On the journey, she is accompanied by Giovanni, with whom she has a relationship.
It will be a journey into a deep South, tied to ancestral customs and a backward mentality, that will bring Silvia to retrace her dark past and Giovanni to discover a devastating family secret, carefully kept hidden by Silvia herself.
The official reason for Silvia's return home is the serious illness and then the death of Giustino, a thirteen-year-old boy believed by all to be her half-brother, born from her mother's second marriage to the lawyer, a local notable.
In reality, Giustino is Silvia's son and her stepfather's, conceived when she was only thirteen and then taken away from her by her mother.
The girl left the town immediately after the event, went through other violences and other stories, and now Giovanni will gradually discover this dark family reality, a real secret that has radically changed Silvia's life and character.

the AUTHOR

Cesare Pavese (Santo Stefano Belbo 1908- Turin 1950) Italian writer.

He complemented his activities as a novelist and poet with those of an essayist and translator, and was one of the founders of the Einaudi publishing house.

First director of the magazine Culture and a frequent translator of American authors, he was then the soul of the Einaudi publishing house in its first 17 years of history, both as editor and as an author.

All of his works have been published by Einaudi and are continually reprinted.
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