Présentation

Dr Rosy Cupo, University Associate Professor in Contemporary Italian Literature UNIVERSITY OF FERRARA

WorldWideBassani project proposes to study and analyze, for the first time, the extraordinary material represented by the letters exchanged by Giorgio Bassani with foreign intellectuals, between 1948 e 1979, preserved in the Giorgio Bassani Heirs Archive in Paris. Thanks to my previous studies on Bassani's works the heirs have authorized me to study and publish the correspondence. The works of Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) are now considered one of the highest literary reflections on the theme of Jewish persecution and the Shoah, and are read and studied increasingly all over the world. Writing after the end of Second World War, in one of the most difficult periods in the history of humanity, the author initiates, with exceptional anticipation of the times, a profound reflection focused not only on the need to bear witness to the atrocities of persecution, but also on the duty to refound a society based on peaceful coexistence. Among Bassani's correspondents we find names of important intellectuals of the twentieth century, such as Cecil Roth (English historian of Jewish origin), Hans Nilsson-Ehle (Swedish linguist), Juan Rodolfo Wilcock (Argentine scholar), Francis Ponge (French poet), Warren Penn Robert (American writer), Rolf Rheiner (German politician and former SS). In this dialogue, crucial issues are addressed: the elaboration of the traumatic past of the Shoah, but also the crisis and disaster of the old world and the rebirth of a “Europe of the peoples”. These documents, unpublished and unknown to scholars, will offer a new perspective on the evolution of the author's thought and on the international, collettive debate on the re-elaboration of the tragedy of persecution, as well as on the construction of a European cultural identity. Thanks to the dissemination and exploitation tools provided by the project (see 2.2), this work will offer a new interpretative model to the entire international community of scholars, decision-makers and the broader public.