Marked by a strong literary consciousness, Franco Cordelli's work engages the important issues of the cultural debate that has been waged in Italy since the 1970s. Guided by a spirit of experimentalism, Cordelli writes in direct opposition to the Gruppo 63, the major avant-garde movement of the post-World War II era. His atypical experimentalism can be identified with Rome's literary tradition, for even though he has little in common with the two writers who are the main exponents of that tradition, Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini, his narratives are closely tied to the city of Rome through setting and themes. As the critic Alberto Asor Rosa points out, Cordelli is one of the few Roman writers to achieve national recognition. He has been criticized, though, for a tendency to overintellectualize. In addition to being a novelist, Cordelli is a poet, playwright, drama critic, translator, and an organizer of...