La Musa Sotto I Portici: Caffè e Provincia Nella Narrativa Di Piero Chiara e Lucio Mastronardi

Stefano Gianni examines the works of Piero Chiara and Lucio Mastronadi through a topos of early twentieth-century Italian culture: the popular, provincial cafe. For both authors, the cafe was a zone of free expression, where protagonists could earn respect and superiority with only their intelligence and will. Chiara and Mastronardi's tales of cafes in Lombardy demonstrate the narrative richness of an apparently poor province, and ultimately the importance the authors ascribe to storytelling as both a personal need and moral activity.