Lucio Mastronardi
Lucio Mastronardi was an Italian writer born on June 28, 1930, in Vivegano, Italy, a town near Milan. He grew up in a modest household, where his father was a teacher. Following in his father's footsteps, Mastronardi also became a teacher, even working with inmates to gain experience. His early literary career began with the publication of short stories that reflected the lives of his neighbors. Mastronardi was a Marxist whose writings often explored the impact of industrialization on Italian society and critiqued the quest for wealth. His influential novel, "Il calzolaio di Vivegano," published in 1959, delves into themes of class struggle and materialism, marking the beginning of a trilogy focused on his hometown. Struggling with depression throughout his life, Mastronardi's personal battles informed his literary themes, including instances of suicidal ideation in his work. Tragically, he disappeared in 1979, and his body was later found in the Ticino river, echoing the narratives of despair in his writings. Mastronardi is recognized as a significant voice in post-World War II Italian literature, using satire and innovative language to address the dehumanizing effects of societal change.
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Lucio Mastronardi
Writer
- Born: June 28, 1930
- Birthplace: Vigevano, Italy
- Died: April 29, 1979
- Place of death: Vigevano, Italy
Biography
Lucio Mastronardi was born on June 28, 1930, in Vivegano, Italy, located about thirty miles southwest of Milan. His father was a teacher from the southern region of Abruzzi who had moved to Vivegano and married a local schoolteacher. The family lived by modest means in a tenement house that was inhabited by artisans and local factory workers. Mastronardi also became a teacher, and he lived most of his life in Vivegano. To gain teaching experience which he hoped would make him more employable, he taught inmates at a local prison. After a while, he became disillusioned with teaching and quit.
While in his twenties, Mastronardi began writing short stories. By the time that he was twenty-five, four of his stories had been published in the local newspaper, Il corrieredi Vivegano. Unlike his later writing, these stories were rather low-key, featuring characters who were much like his neighbors.
Mastronardi, a Marxist, was interested in how rapid industrialization was impacting Italian society and how literature could address this problem. He believed that communism was the only way to produce an egalitarian society. At one time, he marched with the workers from the local factories and was present on their picket line when they declared a strike. However, like so many writers, he eventually became disenchanted with the Communist Party.
In 1959, he published Il calzolaio di Vivegano (the shoemaker of Vivegano), one of his most influential works about the Italian working class. The novel features one of Mastronardi’s central themes, the Italian preoccupation with wealth. This novel was the first in a trilogy dedicated to the city of Vivegano.
In 1961, Mastronardi was involved in an incident on a train where he argued violently with a train inspector. Mastronardi was taken to the local police station; as a result of this argument, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for three months. This apparently was one manifestation of the depression which plagued Mastronardi for most of his life. He believed that depression deprived him of the two things which he most cherished—writing and reading.
In one of Mastronardi’s novels, A casa tua ridono (1971), one of the central characters attempts to take his own life by throwing himself into the Ticino river. In 1979, Mastronardi disappeared from his home, and efforts to search for him proved fruitless. On April 29, 1979, Mastornardi’s body was pulled from the Ticino river, where he had apparently decided to act out the scene from his novel.
Mastronardi was among the first post-World War II Italian writers to tackle the social consequences of the industrialization that changed Italian life and culture. His novels portray the dehumanization which results from the quest for material goods, when individual success and the acquisition of wealth become the most important cornerstones of society. As well, Mastronardi’s works are known for their satirical nature, and for his experimentation with language.