Carlo Emilio Gadda: Contemporary Perspectives

"Carlo Emilio Gadda" (1893-1973) Is Considered By Many To Be Italy's Most outstanding contemporary writer. Author of essays, novels, and short stories, Gadda has been awarded many literary prizes, particularly for his style, which has been compared with that of Joyce, Proust, and Musil. Because, however, his dense and complex linguistics tend to defy adequate translation, his work is not widely known outside of Italy. This collection of essays on Gadda's work introduces him at last to the English-speaking world.

Written by leading Gadda scholars, the essays capture the innumerable complexities that characterize Gadda's narrative. His plurilingualism, his pastiches, and his narrative entanglements are revealed as both a revolt against conventional literary style and the expression of a chaotic, painful, and labyrinthine world inhabited by a fragmented subject. Gadda emerges as a transgressive novelist, a humourist, and a mannerist who continuously deforms language through parodic and comic modes.

No other work on Gadda in any language contains the variety of approaches and insights found in this collection. In addition, the volume highlights interesting links between Gadda and a range of eminent writers, from Pirandello to Celine, thus opening his work to intertextual and comparative perspectives on an international level.