Gadda and Montale were certainly two of the greatest writers and poets of twentieth-century Italy. But what was their attitude toward fascism? How did they get through the Ventennio? What compromises were they forced to accept? On the one hand, Gadda had bravely fought on all fronts of the Great War, driven by a strong national-patriotic passion, and recognized himself in the fascist movement, a providential defense to the risks of the Bolshevik revolution. On the other, Montale followed a less linear path, at first sharing the myths of combatantism and the enticements of fascism, but distancing himself from them as early as 1923, as evidenced by some correspondence exchanges. 

As they entered the 1920s, both came to express a convergent orientation, oscillating between a substantial indifference to fascism and anti-fascism. But the 1930s, with the Ethiopian War and the terrible two-year period from 1938 to 1939, confronted them with steep aut-aut  that led both to harsh judgments about the "regime". Hence Gadda's and Montale's fiery words against a regime led by an 'heir-alcoholic' and a society in which 'no one is blameless anymore.'

A book that will fascinate the reader with surprising discoveries, the result of long archival work and the study of an impressive bibliography.