The communist
By: Guido Morselli ; translated from the Italian by Frederika Randall ; introduction by Elizabeth McKenzie
Contributors: Randall, Frederika, translator; McKenzie, Elizabeth, 1958- writer of introduction
Series: New York Review Books classics; New York Review Books classics
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 324
ISBN-13: 9781681370781
Subjects: Communists; Fiction; Meaning (Psychology); Belief and doubt; Philosophy; Labor
Work titles: Comunista
Description: "A unique political coming of age story, now in English for the first time. An NYRB Classics Original. The Communist is the story of a life lived in the service of a faith and what happens when that faith is lost. Walter Ferranini, a child of Italy's agricultural heartland, begins as an earnest autodidact who works as a labor organizer before being driven, under Mussolini, into exile in the United States, the belly of the capitalist beast. After World War II, he returns to Italy and enters parliament as a communist MP. Then Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalin's crimes leads to a crisis in Walter's life. He has come to question that most basic communist belief, that human life finds its fulfillment in labor, and he writes an article expressing his doubts. It is a scandal, as, in the eyes of the prudish party elders, is his new relationship with Nuccia, a journalist who is a married woman. Under these circumstances, Walter is invited for the first time to visit the Soviet Union, and there he finds himself bewildered beyond words. In The Communist, Guido Morselli portrays a man of conviction cast adrift with deep and compelling sympathy"--
Notes: Translation from the Italian of: Comunista.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-324).