Cesare Pavese

Cesare Pavese, regarded as one of Italy’s most important twentieth-century poets, was born on September 9, 1908, on his parents’ farm in Santo Stefano Belbo, a small town in the Piedmont region near Turin. Pavese published his first collection of poetry, Lavorare stanca (Edizioni di Solaria, 1936), titled Hard Labor in English, after returning to Turin from a ten-month exile in Brancaleone, a commune in Calabria. Pavese received Italy’s most prestigious literary award for La Bella Estate [The Beautiful Summer] (Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1949). Eight volumes of Pavese’s prose, poetry, and correspondence were published posthumously, including Death Will Come and Have Your Eyes (1951), a manuscript of poetry dedicated to Dowling that was found on Pavese’s desk after his suicide, as well as Le Poesie (Giulio Einaudi, 1998), his collected poems. In 1982, the Premio Grinzane Cavour Award was established in his honor to pay homage to both Italian and foreign writers for their civil commitments. (Source)