The Craft of Living is a collection of journals written by Italian intellectual Cesare Pavese between 1935, when the Fascist regime exiled him to Calabria, and 1950, the year he committed suicide. This is the first English publication of these journals in their entirety.
Cesare Pavese was a multifaceted intellectual and Italian author who was inspired both by the classical tradition and the literary avant-garde. In his youth, he discovered and translated masterpieces of American literature such as H. Melville's Moby Dick (1932). As a novelist, he experimented with many different styles. As an editor, he contributed to the establishment and the rise of the Einaudi publishing house, one of the greatest Italian and European publishers of the period. Introduced and edited by Italian studies scholar Iuri Moscardi and translated by Julian Sachs, The Craft of Living reconstructs the genesis of Pavese's work and its editorial history through the richness of his journals. The book also contains three appendices by Pavese that have never been translated before.
In his journals, Pavese recorded personal and intellectual data, demonstrating his attempt to perfect the craft of living. This book witnesses the development of his writing style and his relationship to literature which was, to him, a humanist examination of the deep connection between life and words.