Nanni Balestrini Livres

The Golden Horde is a definitive work on the Italian revolutionary movements of the 1960s and '70s. An anthology of texts and fragments woven together with an original commentary, The Golden Horde widens our understanding of the full complexity and richness of radical thought and practice in Italy during the 1960s and '70s. The book covers the generational turbulence of Italy's postwar period, the transformations of Italian capitalism, the new analyses by worker-focused intellectuals, the student movement of 1968, the Hot Autumn of 1969, the extra-parliamentary groups of the early 1970s, the Red Brigades, the formation of a radical women's movement, the development of Autonomia, and the build-up to the watershed moment of the spontaneous political movement of 1977. Far from being merely a handbook of political history, The Golden Horde also sheds light on two decades of Italian culture, including the newspapers, songs, journals, festivals, comics, and philosophy that these movements produced. The book features writings by Sergio Bologna, Umberto Eco, Elvio Fachinelli, Lea Melandri, Danilo Montaldi, Toni Negri, Raniero Panzieri, Franco Piperno, Rossana Rossanda, Paolo Virno, and others, as well as an in-depth introduction by translator Richard Braude outlining the work's composition and development.

An epic joyful and explosive insurrection from the poet of youth rebellion.

Explosive novel of Italy's revolutionary 1969 by leading Italian novelist

This book is unique as no other novel can claim to be: one of 109,027,350,432,000 possible variations of the same work of fiction. Inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, Tristano was first published in 1966 in Italian. But only recently has digital technology made it possible to realise the author’s original vision. The novel comprises ten chapters, and the fifteen pairs of paragraphs in each of these are shuffled anew for each published copy. No two versions are the same. The random variations between copies enact the variegations of the human heart, as exemplified by the lovers at the centre of the story. The copies of the English translation of Tristano are individually numbered, starting from 10,000 (running sequentially from the Italian and German editions). Included is a foreword by Umberto Eco explaining how Balestrini’s experiment with the physical medium of the novel demonstrates ‘that originality and creativity are nothing more than the chance handling of a combination’.

Nanni Balestrini is the most significant writer of Italy's revolutionary period in the sixties and seventies, comparable only to Pier Paolo Pasolini. Blackout is the first book of his poetry available in English. Written immediately after he was indicted by Italian authorities and forced to flee, it has at its center the great New York blackout of 1977, a moment of chaos and panic, but also of mutual aid and social solidarity. This comes to stand in for the years from 1968-1979 in Italy, when a more or less open civil war between popular militants and the state escalated from strikes and riots to armed struggle. At once documentary and visionary, it is a poem of heroic and daily struggles for freedom, captured in heroic and daily language. It is a poem of popular revolt being crushed, a poem for our era as well as his.

Carbonia ist eine 1938 am Reissbrett entworfene Mono-Stadt im wilden Landesinneren der Mittelmeerinsel Sardinien. Sie wurde zum Zwecke der Kohleförderung geplant und errichtet und galt als ein Musterprojekt des faschistischen Italiens. Nach dem 2. Weltkrieg wuchs die Stadt auf 60.000 Einwohner an. In den 1950ern folgten einige harte Streiks und Auseinandersetzungen zwischen den gut organisierten Kumpeln und der Firmenleitung. Mit der Zeit verlor die sardische Kohle jedoch an Bedeutung und sämtliche Minen wurden bis 1971 wieder geschlossen. Heute erinnert in Carbonia ein Bergbaumuseum an den Ursprung der Stadt. Nanni Balestrini setzt dieser Stadt und ihren Kämpfen ein literarisches Denkmal. Sein Roman Carbonia – Wir waren alle Kommunisten ist aber nicht nur eine lokale Geschichte oder ein Städteporträt, sondern eine Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts insgesamt. Erzählt wird sie anhand des Schicksals eines Arbeiters aus den Bergen Sardiniens, der im 2. Weltkrieg zur Marine eingezogen wird. Nach seiner Desertion beteiligt er sich an der Resistenza, wird von den Nazis verhaftet und landet als Zwangsarbeiter in einem Lager in Nord-Deutschland. Er erlebt die Befreiung, seine damit verbundenen Hoffnungen werden jedoch enttäuscht. So entsteht Wut und Zorn, nicht nur in der Person des Protagonisten, sondern unter den tausenden Bergwerkern, die unter ähnlich gefährlichen Bedingungen unter Tage schuften. Von den ersten militanten Streiks spannt Balestrini einen Bogen bis zur Entstehung der Autonomia Ende der 1960er Jahren und den Mietstreiks und Hausbesetzungen jener Jahre.

Im Frühling 1972 wird die Leiche des Verlegers Giangiacomo Feltrinelli bei Mailand gefunden. Der Roman kombiniert Presseberichte, polizeiliche Ermittlungen und politische Erklärungen, um die heftigen Diskussionen in der italienischen Linken und die dramatischen 1970er-Jahre eindrucksvoll darzustellen.

"An den Rändern der großen Städte, den Stadien und ihrer Umgebung fließen die Gesänge von I FURIOSI zusammen. Eine poetische Prosa, die im Rhythmus der Geschichten von den Abfahrten im Morgengrauen aus den verwüsteten Randgebieten, den Horrorreisen in stinkenden Sonderzügen erzählt. Von den Schlägereien und Drogenexzessen der Rotschwarzen Brigaden des AC Milan." La Republica, April 1994

“30 years later we find that we are all still like we were in ’45.” The artist, experimental poet, and writer Nanni Balestrini (*1935) describes in frenzied flashbacks the miserable living and working conditions in postwar Italy, as well as the gruesome and traumatic experiences in an SS prison camp in Germany from the perspective of a disaffected but fierce survivor. He reports in detail and without punctuation. After being rejected upon his return due to his political beliefs, he finds work in the mines of Carbonia. The ruthless exploitation of the workers, and the impenitent Fascists, recall memories of war and unleash his Communist ideals. The strike of the mine workers of Carbonia becomes “his strike,” as Communism is for him the only possibility to unite with his comrades and to break the silence. “Carbonia (We Were All Communists)” is the testimony of a man who lived different lives in Sardegna, Germany, and Australia, and record of his unconditional fight for justice.