Cesare Pavese
Poet
Twentieth-century Italian poet, author, and translator known for La luna e i falo (The Moon and the Bonfires), Il Compagno (The Comrade), and other works. His literary works typically focus on an isolated protagonist who has only shallow relationships.
He graduated from the University of Turin, where he was mentored by Russian literary critic Leone Ginzburg.
He was arrested in 1935 for his antifascist activities; he later joined the Italian Communist Party.
Prior to his suicide at the age of forty-one, he spent many summers in his father's home village of Santo Stefano Belbo, Italy.
He wrote his university thesis on the poems of Walt Whitman.