On the occasion of May 1, a unique concurrence of dates and events lead to the rediscovery but also the discovery of one of Abruzzo’s most illustrious people: Ignazio Silone.
May 1, 1900, is the day on which Ignazio Silone was born with the name Secondino and the surname Tranquilli in Pescina in the Marsica fucense. May 1 is the day dedicated to Workers’ Day and Silone was by human, moral, religious and political formation at the side and in defense of the claims of the last, laborers and workers that they were. So far so normal one would say but this year is special because it also falls on the anniversary of the first Italian edition of Fontamara.
Publication of the novel took place a full twelve years earlier in 1933 in Switzerland where Silone had taken refuge as a political exile to escape persecution by the fascist regime. And it was with the end of that regime that Fontamara was finally published in Italy in 1945, the book that is Silone’s best-known and most appreciated work worldwide. On May 1, celebrating Labor Day, it is necessary to reread or even read for the first time a very famous passage from it that makes very clear the terrible condition of the so-called “cafoni,” the very poor peasants of Fucino:
“At the head of all is God, master of heaven.
This everyone knows.
Then comes Prince Torlonia, master of the land.
Then come the prince’s guards.
Then come the prince’s guard dogs.
Then, nothing.
Then, still nothing.
Then, still nothing.
Then come the boors.
And you can say that it is finished.”
Reading Silone, reading the events of that Fontamara of his can leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth, but it can also kindle a light of hope, that of rebellion against abuse, of the desire for redemption and the struggle to be able to believe that one can change one’s condition in life.
For the80th anniversary of the Italian release of Fontamara , there is a fine initiative of the Abruzzo daily Il Centro, which, just on the occasion of May 1, is combining the sale of the newspaper with the reprinted book in a special edition. A new edition that was presented on April 30 at an event in Pescina, with excerpts read by big names in Abruzzo culture and entertainment.
