Ottiero Ottieri
Ottiero Ottieri was an Italian novelist and poet born on March 29, 1924, in Rome, where his family had relocated from southern Tuscany after World War I. He passed away on July 25, 2002, leaving behind his wife, Silvana Mauri, and two children. A graduate of the University of Rome in Italian literature, Ottieri also explored English literature, sociology, psychology, and psychoanalysis, themes that significantly influenced his writing. Primarily known for his contributions to industrial literature, Ottieri's works delve into the postwar realities of industry, neocapitalism, and social alienation. His notable novels include *Memorie dell'inconscienza*, which uniquely addressed World War II without aligning with traditional political narratives, and *Donnarumma all'assalto*, his most famous work that was adapted into a television film. Throughout his career, Ottieri's writing evolved from naturalistic portrayals of industrial life to deeper psychological explorations, influenced by his own struggles with depression. His later works, such as *Il campo di concentrazione*, provide a compelling introspection into mental illness, solidifying his reputation as a significant figure in Italian literature concerned with the complexities of the human condition.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Ottiero Ottieri
Fiction and Nonfiction Writer and Playwright
- Born: March 29, 1924
- Birthplace: Rome, Italy
- Died: July 25, 2002
- Place of death: Milan, Italy
Biography
Ottiero Ottieri was born on March 29, 1924, in Rome, Italy. His family had moved to Rome from southern Tuscany after World War I. Ottieri died on July 25, 2002, at the age of seventy- eight. His wife of fifty-two years, Silvana Mauri, and their two children, Maria Pace and Alberto, survived him. Ottieri graduated from the University of Rome with a degree in Italian literature. However, he was also interested in English literature, sociology, psychology, and psychoanalysis. These psychological interests result in psychological exploration, which become distinctive traits in his later novels.
After moving to Milan, Ottieri was employed by the Olivetti Company as a sociopsychologist with the responsibility of interviewing and screening job applicants. His experiences in this position and his own long, neurotic depression affected all his writings. Ottieri’s literature comprises two extremes of the narrative spectrum: the naturalistic and the psychological. Ottieri is best known for what Italians refer to as industrial literature; his first novels were about the new postwar world of industry, neocapitalism, labor problems, and social alienation.
His first novel, Memorie dell’inconscienza (memories of the unconscious, 1954), dealt with the events of World War II. Unlike the typical Resistance novel, its protagonist was neither Fascist or anti-Fascist; instead, he preferred not to take sides. Influenced by the writings of social theorist Karl Marx, Ottieri wrote his second novel, Tempi stretti (hard times, 1957), which examines the lives of people involved in industrial labor and the factories where they work. This novel was criticized for its lack of style
Ottieri’s next novel, Donnarumma all’assalto (1959; translated as Men at the Gate, 1962), answered the objections of critics and became his most famous work. It was subsequently made into a television moving in 1972. Ottieri concluded his focus on the problems of industrialization with La linea gotica (the gothic line, 1963), a notebook he kept from 1948 to 1958, chronically his views on social and psychological problems of industrialization.
With his fourth novel, L’impagliatore di sedie (the chair mender, 1964), Ottieri began writing novels about various psychological issues. A significant factor in Ottieri’s change of focus was his own depression, which led him to leave his position at Olivetti in Milan and required him to undergo years of therapy. During a seven-year period, Ottieri devoted his attention to mental illness and wrote a description in verse of obsessive neurosis, Il pensiero perverso (the perverse thought, 1971), and Il campo di concentrazione (field of concentration, 1972), a diary written during a period of depression describing the depression itself. Ottieri returned to writing novels in 1975 with Contessa, another novel that focuses on the psychological aspects of its characters.
As a novelist, poet and an exemplar of industrial literature, Ottieri was essentially concerned, in one way or another, with the human condition. While Ottieri is primarily linked to his classic novel Donnarumma all’assalto, his later works manifested his self-analysis with such power and lucidity that his best pages will remain among the most compelling examples of psychological probing in Italian literature.