Ragazzi di vita. La versione inedita

Seventy years after its first publication, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s most important novel returns in its original form, finally restored to readers without editorial censorship, in all its integrity and expressive power.

In The Ragazzi, Pasolini’s message of rebellion and transgression remains as relevant as ever. Bold and groundbreaking, the novel gives voice for the first time to the marginalized youth of Rome’s outskirts, following Riccetto, a boy who gradually drifts into the fringes of postwar Rome through theft, scams, and eventually prostitution.

When Pasolini submitted the manuscript of The Ragazzi in April 1955, it marked the beginning of a turbulent editorial journey. Even at the proof stage, the publisher Garzanti expressed moral concerns: the obscene language and shocking scenes seemed excessive. Fearing public criticism, he asked Pasolini to tone down the most extreme passages, forcing the author into a painful process of self-censorship. Yet despite careful revision and remarkable success, the novel caused a scandal: both Pasolini and Garzanti were charged with obscenity.

The new edition of The Ragazzi is the result of the meticulous philological work of Maria Careri’s work on the manuscripts preserved at the National Library of Rome: a successful attempt to free Pasolini’s original work from the hypocrisy of its time, allowing an unprecedented creation to blossom once again in all its authenticity, beauty, and expressive power, entirely uncompromised.