ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the political sphere, two established authors at the 'centre' of the literary sphere — Italo Calvino and Pier Paolo Pasolini — who began their careers in the post-war environment of the committed, neo-realist novel, and, whilst following developments in literary theory. It discusses the work of another older and yet in many ways 'marginal' writer, Leonardo Sciascia. An elaboration of Sciascia's analysis is supplied by the French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard. In the protest writing of the 1970s, however, the witness is conceived of as a participant with a special insight into a specific and ex-centric activity or experience. Baudrillard takes the murder of Moro as his ideal example of rationalization process: the 'Brigate rosse' extracted the stock figure of the party leader from the political 'scene' and took him into their own extension of that 'scene' — politically more elaborate, manipulative, dangerous than the main one.
