Ignazio Silone

Ignazio Silone (ēnyä´tsyō sēlō´nā), 1900–1978, Italian novelist and journalist, whose original name was Secondo Tranquilli. A Socialist and for a time a Communist, he broke with Stalin and supported Trotsky in the late 1920s and thereafter, devoting his writings to attacking Fascism and promoting Socialism without sacrificing ...

Ignazio Silone (ēnyä´tsyō sēlō´nā), 1900–1978, Italian novelist and journalist, whose original name was Secondo Tranquilli. A Socialist and for a time a Communist, he broke with Stalin and supported Trotsky in the late 1920s and thereafter, devoting his writings to attacking Fascism and promoting Socialism without sacrificing human and literary values to his thesis. He fled Italy in 1931, and, after living in Switzerland, he returned to his native country in 1944 to become editor of the newspaper Avanti. His novel Fontamara (1933, tr., 1934) was rewritten after World War II to reflect his matured political thought; an English translation of the second version appeared in 1960. Silone's other works include Pane e vino (1937, tr. Bread and Wine, 1962); La scuola dei dittatori (1938; tr. The School for Dictators, 1938); The Living Thoughts of Mazzini (tr. 1939); Il seme sotto la neve (1940; tr. The Seed beneath the Snow, 1942); Uscita di sicurezza (1951; tr. Emergency Exit, 1968); and L'avventura d'un povero cristiano (1968; tr. The Story of a Humble Christian, 1970). Silone contributed critical and political articles to various periodicals.

See biography by S. G. Pugliese 2009).