ABSTRACT
Novelist and editor A member of the Italian Jewish community and a passionate anti-fascist, Bassani spent his youth in Ferrara and later moved to Rome, where he published his most important novels while contributing to several prestigious journals and periodicals. In his novels and short stories, from Gli occhiali d’oro (The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles) (1958) and Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) (1962)—both made into successful movies by, respectively, Giuliano Montaldo (1987) and Vittorio De Sica (1971)—to L’odore del fieno (The Smell of Hay) (1972), Bassani tells stories of human and socio-political marginalization, often inspired by his own youthful experiences in the war years and mainly set in the provincial microcosm of Ferrara.
