Communism in late 30s Moscow, as reported by the inimitable Malaparte--now in English for the first time.
Curzio Malaparte (pseudonym of Kurt Eric Suckert, 1898-1957) was
born in Prato, Italy, and served in World War I. An early supporter
of the Italian Fascist movement and a prolific journalist,
Malaparte soon established himself as an outspoken public figure.
In 1931 he incurred Mussolini's displeasure by publishing a how-to
manual entitled Technique of the Coup-d'Etat, which led to his
arrest and a brief term in prison. During World War II Malaparte
worked as a correspondent, for much of the time on the eastern
front, and this experience provided the basis for his two most
famous books, Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949), both available as
NYRB Classics. His political sympathies veered to the left after
the war. He continued to write, while also involving himself in the
theater and the cinema.
Jenny McPhee is a translator and the author of the novels The
Center of Things, No Ordinary Matter, and A Man of No Moon. She
translated Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon from the Italian for
NYRB Classics. McPhee is the director of the Center of Applied
Liberal Arts at New York University and lives in New York.
"Malaparte may just be the original postmodernist, at least as far
as genre-crossing is concerned…A head-swirling kaleidoscope that,
though fictional, is never for a moment fictitious.” —Kirkus
Review
“Malaparte enlarged the art of fiction in more perverse, inventive,
and darkly liberating ways than one would imagine possible, long
before novelists like Philip Roth, Robert Coover, and E. L.
Doctorow began using their own and other people’s histories as
Play-Doh.” —Gary Indiana
“Surreal, disenchanted, on the edge of amoral, Malaparte broke
literary ground for writers from Ryszard Kapuscinski to Joseph
Heller.” —Frederika Randall, The Wall Street Journal
“A scrupulous reporter? Probably not. One of the most remarkable
writers of the 20twentieth century? Certainly.” —Ian Buruma
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