The Modern Novel

Biography

Corrado Alvaro was born in San Luca in 1895. He was one of six children. His father was a primary school teacher and founded an evening school for farmers and illiterate shepherds. When he was ten he went to a Jesuit school in Frascati, where he wrote his first poetry. He was expelled when caught reading Carducci’s Hymn to Satan. During World War 1 he fought in an infantry regiment, he was wounded and went to Rome where he worked as a journalist. He moved to Milan, where he worked for Corriere della Sera.

In 1919 he graduated in literature from the University of Milan. He then worked as a correspondent in Paris. He signed Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals and, in 1926, he published his first novel, about the rise of Fascism in Italy. He worked for a while as a correspondent in Berlin before returning to Italy. After visiting Russia, he published L’uomo è forte (Man Is Strong; later: Fear in the World), which criticised Stalin. During the war he was mostly in Rome, working some of the time as theatre critic. When the Germans invaded, he fled under an assumed name and earned a living teaching English.

After the war he co-founded the National Writers’ Union of which he remained secretary till his death. As well as writing books and screenplays, he worked in broadcasting and journalism. He died in 1956, after having contracted an abdominal tumour. He left behind several unfinished novels.

Links

Corrado Alvaro
Corrado Alvaro: An Introduction to His Life and Work
Corrado Alvaro
Corrado Alvaro and the Calabrian mafia: a critical case study of the use of literary and journalistic texts in research on Italian organized crime
Corrado Alvaro (in Italian)
Corrado Alvaro (in Italian)
Corrado Alvaro (in Italian)
Il cronista antifascista Corrado Alvaro (in Italian)
Corrado Alvaro, il più grande scrittore della Calabria (in Italian)