Italian Chimeras Narrating Italy through the Writing of Sebastiano Vassalli

«The first full presentation and critical assessment in English of one of Italy’s
most original and thought-provoking writers of the past fifty years. The book
convincingly shows how Vassalli’s characters and milieus are distinctly Italian,
and yet speak the universal language of desire frustrated and crushed, in
different historical settings, by the brutality of institutions and power.» (Lino Pertile, Research Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures,
Harvard University)

«This sweeping study of Sebastiano Vassalli, one of European literature’s most
iconoclastic public intellectuals, is a retrospective of his multifaceted oeuvre
and Italy’s tumultuous politics and culture from the late 1960s onward. Meriel
Tulante’s deft and timely analysis brings together literary studies and cultural
history to reveal the ethos of his unsparing and polemical lens on human
society.» (Letizia Modena, Associate Professor of Italian, Vanderbilt University)