This book is about the presence of utopian and dystopian elements in the Italian literary landscape. It focuses on four authors that are representatives of the various positions in the Italian cultural debate: Pasolini, Calvino, Sanguineti, and Volponi. What did concepts like utopia and dystopia mean for these authors? Is it possible to separate utopia from dystopia? What is the role of science fiction in this debate? This book answers these questions, proposing an original interpretation of utopia and of the social role of literature. The book also takes into consideration four of the most influential literary journals in Italy: Officina, il menabò, il verri, and Nuovi Argomenti, that played a central role in the cultural and political debate on utopia in Italy.

Daniele Fioretti teaches at Miami University, USA. He holds a Dottorato di Ricerca from the Università di Firenze and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published a collection of letters from Paolo Volponi to Pier Paolo Pasolini: Paolo Volponi, Scrivo a te come guardandomi allo specchio. Lettere a Pasolini 1954-1975 (2009). He also co-edited Il romanzo di formazione nell'Ottocento e nel Novecento (2007) with Maria Carla Papini and Teresa Spignoli. His latest book is Carte di fabbrica. La narrativa industriale in Italia 1934-1989 (2013).

Introduction.- Chapter 1. The Theoretical Landscape.- Chapter 2. Pier Paolo Pasolini: The Contradictions of Utopia.- Chapter 3. Italo Calvino: A Reasonable Utopia.- Chapter 4. The World as a Marsh: Dystopia and Utopia in Edoardo Sanguineti.- Chapter 5. Utopia and Hybridization in Paolo Volponi.- Conclusion.- Bibliography.- Index.