The Street Kids is the most important novel by Italy’s preeminent late 20th Century author and intellectual, Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The Street Kids tells the story of Riccetto, a poor urchin who lives on the outskirts of Rome. Readers meet him at his first communion in 1944 during the German occupation of Italy. In the years that follow, drifting ever further from family and friends, Riccetto moves from petty theft to more elaborate cons and finally to prostitution. He is arrested and jailed after trying to steal some iron in order to buy his fiancée an engagement ring.
Pasolini’s message of rebellion and transgression is as important today as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

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The idea for this novel came to Pasolini suddenly, almost urgently; according to the author, “the story of Una vita violenta took shape almost out of the blue one night in 1953 or 1954, while I was finishing Ragazzi di vita”. The two novels share similar narrative materials and were written one after the other, thus they are somehow related: once again, the protagonists are boys from working-class suburbs of Rome, and the novel tells their stories and their tragic journey through life. The idea for this novel came to Pasolini suddenly, almost urgently; according to the author, “the story of Una vita violenta took shape almost out of the blue one night in 1953 or 1954, while I was finishing Ragazzi di vita”.

pp.384

A critique of capitalism, the middle-class, the loss of individuality, the Catholic Church and property speculation: all this, and much more, can be found in Scritti Corsari, possibly the most penetrating and controversial work written by Pasolini. Between 1972 and 1975, the author published in “Corriere della Sera”, the newspaper that more than any other represented the respectable middle-class, his critical, almost cruel analysis of late 20th century society – an analysis that is still relevant today.

pp.272

A collection Pasolini’s writings about the most beautiful sport in the world.

A collection of texts in which Pasolini writes about what he himself describes as “the last holy representation of our times”. His passion for it is well documented, and not just as a spectator: there are many black-and-white photos of him, wearing shorts and football boots with studs, running after the ball. Not least, the match on 23 March 1956, between a team of writers and representatives of a working-class Rome suburb. Among the writers, there was Bassani, Cancigni, Garboli, Sermonti, Giagni, Cibotto and a very young Pasolini.

Contains a preface by Gabriele Romagnoli, journalist and writer.

pp.96

with a preface by Andrea Bajani

A weekly column written by Pasolini becomes an open, uncompromising, stark and involving dialogue with his readers, and is still one of the most in-depth and fascinating studies of the history of the Sixties.

In June 1960, while making his directorial debut with Accattone, Pier Paolo Pasolini inaugurates a column in the weekly political and cultural publication Vie Nuove, in which he corresponds with his readers. And so begins a true epistolary debate that, albeit with various interruptions, goes on for five years: the people who write to him are manual workers, students, the unemployed and, above all, young adults and adolescents who “use culture not as a qualification but as nourishment”. Pasolini becomes their fellow traveller and confidant, holds conversations that go beyond everyday reports in order to try and interpret the important ongoing historical phenomena, and introduces into the public discussion topics that eventually become crucial in the years to come: the role of women, the new and necessary school policies, the progressive movement making its way in the Church and the dangerous notion of unlimited progress.

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DEFINITIVE EDITION CURATED BY ANTONELLA GIORDANO AND NICO NALDINI

This collection brings together, for the first time ever in their complete form, some of the richest, most significant examples of correspondence in Italian literature: by searching through Pier Paolo Pasolini’s papers, consulting the archives of various establishments, libraries and cultural institutes, contacting the writer’s addressees or their heirs, and checking newspapers, magazines and books, the editors have unearthed over 300 unpublished letters – among these there are in particular some addressed to Elsa Morante, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Attilio Bertolucci and Giorgio Bassani. This is in addition to the hundreds of letters we already know, which were sent to Italo Calvino, Allen Ginsberg, Alberto Arbasino and prominent representatives of European culture. The result is a body that is unique for the quality of its interlocutors and depth of expression, and one that also provides a true autobiography of one of the most complex, significant artists of 20th-century Italy.

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A definitive new edition of the posthumous book that became a cult.

The non-fiction novel about power and evil in 1970’s Italy.

Edited by Walter Siti, Premio Strega winner and the unquestionable expert on Pasolini’s work.

Begun during the worldwide oil crisis and, over the years, described as a novel about power, Petrolio is a non-fiction novel about the death of Enrico Mattei, and the true reason behind the author’s murder.

It’s a huge fragment of what should have been a monumental, 2,000-page work with, as its protagonist, Carlo Valletti, a middle-class ENI engineer from Turin who contains two different individuals in the same body, two sides of the same coin: Carlo di Polis, his public, rational persona, and Carlo di Tetis, the hidden, sexual one.

What emerges from these “Notes” is a desperate human cross section of Italy during the economic boom, amid the exploration of sexual mysteries and dark conspiracies, as well as still unpunished State crimes.

In this book, Pier Paolo Pasolini takes his experimentalism to the extreme: ellipses in lieu of an introduction, seven prefaces, a fragmented structure and a huge variety of stylistic registers that go from the lyrical to the journalistic, from an interview in verse to narration.

Thanks to Walter Siti’s original critical interpretations and Maria Careri’s editing of the text, Petrolio now returns in a new, definitive version that sheds light on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s most mysterious, famous and personal book.

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