Fantasy and Censorship: Dino Buzzati’s correspondence from Italian colonies

Abstract

The aim of my contribution is to study the role and influence of Fascist censorship in the journalistic articles that Dino Buzzati wrote from tha Italian colonies for the Corriere della Sera between 1933 and 1940. The articles are collected in the volume L’Africa di Buzzati.By placing Buzzati’s work in a precise historical framework and discussing the problem of his ‘orientalism’, the article demonstrates that Buzzati’s work from Africa can be read as a document of Italian colonialism and that it confirmed, in terms of stereotypes and prejudices, not only the attitude of ‘the West’ towards North African peoples, but also his bias against cultural and social realities which were distant from the ones he was familiar with.In terms of politics and ideology, the texts of Il Buttafuoco are difficult to decipher, especially with reference to the problem of racism. Buzzati’s narrative was determined not only by the influence of Fascist censorship but also by his aesthetic choices. In particular, the role of space played by the desert, the preference for anti-heroic figures and the diffuse use of imagination show the complexity of the relationship between Buzzati and political power, but also the originality in the way Buzzati used these figures to build a symbolism around the represented reality.