Impegno and Alì Babà: Celati, Calvino, and the Debate on Literature in the 1970s

Author: Francioso, Monica

Source: Italian Studies, Volume 64, Number 1, Spring 2009 , pp. 105-119(15)

Publisher: Maney Publishing

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Abstract:

In 1968 Gianni Celati and Italo Calvino started to work on a periodical, now known as Alì Babà, which was abandoned in 1972. In 1998, Mario Barenghi and Marco Belpoliti published correspondence, essays, and reports written for Alì Babà, prompting critical debate. Critics have regarded the project as an attempt to move away from the highly ideological and political overtones of the 1968 student movement and the debate on impegno which the students put back on the agenda. In this article I argue that, even though the language the project was bound to use was distinct from the student movement's ideological idiom, the periodical would nevertheless have had a clearly political dimension. I further argue that Alì Babà's cultural and theoretical framework shared some common ground with the approaches to literature and culture that emerged from the student movement.

Keywords: CELATI; CALVINO; HISTORY; ARCHAEOLOGY; LITERARY JOURNALS; STUDENT MOVEMENTS

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1179/174861809X405827

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