One of the most prominent writers to focus on the problems of Southern Italy, Francesco Jovine arguably had the traits of an "intellettuale organico," that is, a socially involved intellectual, as formulated by Antonio Gramsci, the leftist thinker and politician who founded the Italian Communist Party. Jovine's cultural and literary backgrounds provide indisputable evidence for the gradual and profound transition in his prose from an elaborate narrative style, influenced by naturalism and the works of Gabriele D'Annunzio, to an unadorned way of writing. He employed a simple style of prose to make known the wretched living conditions of southern Italians, on whose behalf he felt morally compelled to speak and to fight.

Jovine was born on 9 October 1902 in Guardialfiera, in the Campobasso province of the Molise region, into a lower-middle-class family. He had two brothers, Nicola and Vittorio, and a sister, Ernestina, who died at the age of...