Hemingway, Moravia e il fascismo. La “fortuna” dello scrittore americano in Italia tra gli anni ’20 e gli anni ’60

Among the Italian responses to Hemingway’s death, Alberto Moravia’s stands out for his condemnation of the US writer’s cult of his publica persona. Comparing Hemingway to D’Annunzio, Moravia comes very close to calling Hemingway himself if not a Fascist, certainly someone whose values were close to Fascist ones. Moravia’s essay sparked a lively debate, with many Italian critics and writers coming out in defense of Hemingway, even when they may have been critical of specific aspects of his work. The essay sketches that debate, and then goes on to analyze what were, historically, Hemingway’s own pronouncements on Fascism, Mussolini, and D’Annunzio. The historical record shows that the American writer was unambiguously hostile to Fascism, and as proven both by the banning of Farewell to Arms and by his exclusion from a literary jury that should have chosen the best American books for the Italian public, Hemingway was anathema to Mussolini and his associates. It is interesting and at the same time puzzling that, during the debate that followed Moravia’s article, hardly anyone referred to the historical archive in any depth. While this debate may be typical of Cold War intellectual frays and by now dated, it is worth remembering that criticism of Hemingway has been often marked by political overtones both in the past and in the present. Moreover, the importance of Hemingway’s work for Italian writers and the intensity of the debate surrounding the merits of his artistic accomplishments would suggest that he may well deserve to be included in the canon of twentieth-century Italian literature.