Lettere inedite di Elio Vittorini negli archivi svizzeri (1942-51)

Abstract

This article examines the ties that Elio Vittorini had with various German intellectuals and publishers during World War II. Of central importance among these figures is Werner Haftmann, who until 1940 was chief assistant of the German Art History Institute in Florence and subsequently translated Conversazione in Sicilia [Conversations in Sicily] for Steinberg Verlag in Zurich. A file housed at the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern contains correspondence between Vittorini and Selma Steinberg, who together with her sister managed the family publishing house. The letters shed light on their relationship, as well as on other events, such as the Italian translation of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and the dispute with Silone fomented by the Swiss press and then assuaged by Franco Fortini. The appendix contains further correspondence from the University of Milan’s Vittorini Archive, including letters from Vittorini to Selma Steinberg, as well as those to Federico Hindermann, the translator of Vittorini’s works into German.