Hard Labor
Nov 2025 · New York Review of Books
Ebook
160
Pages
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About this ebook
A landmark translation of passionate, fiercely intelligent poetry about coming of age by one of the most influential Italian writers of the twentieth century.
In the spring of 1935, the young Cesare Pavese was sentenced, for "antifascist activities," to three years of detention in a small seaside village in Calabria. Far away from his familiar life in the city of Turin and forced to rely on his own resources, he began to write poems of tremendous power, in terse lines and unsentimental language, giving voice to country people and hard country lives untainted by the propaganda of Fascism. "When I found my friends, I found my real home— / land so worthless a man's got a perfect right / to do absolutely nothing."
Though Pavese is now most famous for his fiction, he was a poet first of all, and Hard Labor was the work for which he hoped to be remembered. It is a book, he once said, "that might have saved a generation." William Arrowsmith's translations—with their strong lines and bold American diction—marvelously convey the spirit and complex vitality of the original.
In the spring of 1935, the young Cesare Pavese was sentenced, for "antifascist activities," to three years of detention in a small seaside village in Calabria. Far away from his familiar life in the city of Turin and forced to rely on his own resources, he began to write poems of tremendous power, in terse lines and unsentimental language, giving voice to country people and hard country lives untainted by the propaganda of Fascism. "When I found my friends, I found my real home— / land so worthless a man's got a perfect right / to do absolutely nothing."
Though Pavese is now most famous for his fiction, he was a poet first of all, and Hard Labor was the work for which he hoped to be remembered. It is a book, he once said, "that might have saved a generation." William Arrowsmith's translations—with their strong lines and bold American diction—marvelously convey the spirit and complex vitality of the original.
About the author
Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) was born on his family's vacation farm in the country outside of Turin in northern Italy. He graduated from the University of Turin, where he wrote a thesis on Walt Whitman, beginning a continuing engagement with English-language literature that was to lead to his influential translations of Moby-Dick, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Three Lives, and Moll Flanders, among other works. Briefly exiled by the Fascist regime to Calabria in 1935, Pavese returned to Turin to work for the new publishing house of Giulio Einaudi, where he eventually became the editorial director. In 1936 he published his first book of poems, Lavorare stanca (Hard Labor), and then turned to writing novels and short stories. Pavese won the Strega Prize for fiction, Italy's most prestigious award, for The Moon and the Bonfires in 1950. Later the same year, after a brief affair with an American actress, he committed suicide. Pavese's posthumous publications include his celebrated diaries, essays on American literature, and a second collection of poems, entitled Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi (Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes).
William Arrowsmith (1924-1992) was born in Orange, New Jersey, and raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He attended Princeton and Oxford, becoming an accomplished writer, editor, and classicist. He translated ancient works (Aristophanes, Euripides, Petronius) as well as modern ones—most notably Eugenio Montale, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Cesare Pavese. He was awarded the National Book Award for his translation of Hard Labor.
Ted Olson is a professor, poet, editor, cultural historian, record producer, musician, and photographer. A nine-time Grammy nominee as a music historian, he has edited volumes of literary work by Sarah Orne Jewett, Sherwood Anderson, and James Still. Olson is also the author of three poetry collections: Breathing in Darkness (2006), Revelations (2012), and Blue Moon (2025).
William Arrowsmith (1924-1992) was born in Orange, New Jersey, and raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He attended Princeton and Oxford, becoming an accomplished writer, editor, and classicist. He translated ancient works (Aristophanes, Euripides, Petronius) as well as modern ones—most notably Eugenio Montale, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Cesare Pavese. He was awarded the National Book Award for his translation of Hard Labor.
Ted Olson is a professor, poet, editor, cultural historian, record producer, musician, and photographer. A nine-time Grammy nominee as a music historian, he has edited volumes of literary work by Sarah Orne Jewett, Sherwood Anderson, and James Still. Olson is also the author of three poetry collections: Breathing in Darkness (2006), Revelations (2012), and Blue Moon (2025).
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