Vasco Pratolini ranks among the most important Italian fiction writers of this century. His creative activity spanned a long and difficult period in Italian history from the 1930s to the 1960s. He left a deep imprint on the literature and culture of his time by virtue of the ideological thrust of his work. Few writers in the twentieth century have provoked such intense and conflicting reactions as has Pratolini. In the case of Metello (1955; translated as Metello, 1968) the debates have gone beyond the field of literature. His narratives always deal with social and historical reality even when, as in his early works, he gives lyrical expressions to his personal life. Pratolini remained faithful to his vision of the novel as an enduring quest for truth marked by social and moral concerns.

Pratolini was born in Florence on 19 October 1913. He lost his mother as a child and was raised...