When he committed suicide at age forty-one, Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) was one of Italy's best-known writers. A poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator, he had been profoundly influenced in his early years by American literature. But later he grew disaffected with American culture, coming to see it as materialistic and shallow. This book, the first full-length English-language study of Pavese in twenty years, examines his life and the evolution of his views of America through a chronological reading of his works.

Lawrence G. Smith received his PhD in the history of American civilization from Harvard University and attended the University of Padua as a Fulbright scholar. He lives in New York City.

"Cesare Pavese and America succeeds masterfully in combining the biographical and the critical. An irresistible read, it at the same time sheds mutual light on the complex cultural and literary relationship between Italy and America, and gives us a fascinating glimpse of the lives of Italian writers and intellectuals living under Fascism, during the war, and in the early postwar years."—Mary Gordon, author of The Love of My Youth

"An original, well-documented study that offers an insightful reading of the intense and complex relationship between Pavese and America. . . . Smith makes effective use of the rich documentation on Pavese, which includes letters, diary entries, his university thesis, translations, as well as his fiction and poetry; most importantly, he does so by presenting the material in an extremely accessible manner. . . . The book will be of interest to a wide range of readers."—Mark Pietralunga, Florida State University

"Smith starts his book with a fluent and well-researched short biography, pulling together the complicated story of Pavese's intellectual and personal formation, and the path to his suicide in 1950, by way of some spectacularly botched love affairs. The story is compelling."—Times Literary Supplement



"This richly detailed, consistently fascinating study uses both biographical and literary-critical approaches to give the fullest account to date of Pavese's engagement with the U.S. . . . Not only will this book serve as an admirable introduction for North American readers to a major Italian author who should be much better known, it will be of great interest to scholars of the reception of U.S. literature in 20th-century Europe. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice

"Smith's book has the merit of attention to detail and to careful chronology. . . . He draws on the fascinating unpublished or not widely available material. . . . Smith starts his book with fluent and well researched short biography, pulling together the complicated story of Pavese's intellectual and personal formation, and the path to his suicide in 1950, by way of some spectacularly botched love affairs. . . . It is well informed on the cast of characters surrounding Pavese in Turin."—Chiamatemi Ismaele

"A compelling read for anyone who wants a more complete picture of the vexed question of Pavese and his relationship to America."—Italica

"The case of Cesare Pavese, the Piedmontese poet and novelist, . . . makes many demands on his would-be biographer. In this new life study, a portrait of the writer and his era and milieu, Lawrence Smith has performed the task admirably. . . . Smith's elegantly written study, as readable as it is knowledgeable, will serve once and for all to reintroduce Pavese's work"—The Literary Review