Selected Poems - Paperback

by Luigi Di Ruscio (Author), Cristina Viti (Translator)

The first English translation of an Italian poet known for his uncompromising integrity and strong leftist sympathy for the working man.

Born in a sub-proletarian ghetto in Italy in 1930 under the fascist regime, Luigi Di Ruscio was an urchin running wild in the countryside, a Communist with clear anarchist leanings, a jack-of-all-trades. In 1957 he emigrated to Oslo, where he worked for forty years in a steel-wire factory, spending his evenings at the typewriter, delving with furious energy into his native Italian. Di Ruscio insisted that whereas the language of power is always a contrived, one-way fabrication, the language of the underprivileged is upfront and direct, aiming straight and sharp for the truth. Caustic as a shopfloor scouring agent, exhilarating in its overabundance, humor, and outspokenness, Selected Poems stands as a testament of tenacity, a record of class struggle, and a vital presence for our times.

Author Biography

Luigi Di Ruscio (1930-2011) was an Italian poet and writer, who lived in Norway from 1957 through the end of his life. Cristina Viti is a translator working with Italian, English, and French.