TWO SHORT STORIES by Nanni Balestrini

Nanni Balestrini was born in Milan in 1935. Known both as an experimental writer of prose and verse and as a cultural and political activist, he played a leading role in avant-garde writing and publishing in the sixties. His involvement with the extra-parliamentary left in the seventies resulted in terrorism charges (of which he was subsequently acquitted) and a long period of self- imposed exile from Italy.

Let A Thousand Hands... is an extract translated from the novel La Violenza Illustrata (Einaudi, 1976). Using one of Balestrini’s favorite techniques, it is a montage of newspaper reports of the death of Mara Cagol, one of the founders of the Red Brigades.

FIAT (1977) is a first-hand account of work (or its refusal) at the infamous FIAT plant in Turin, Italy.

His major novels are Gli Invisibili (Bompiania, 1987; tr. The Unseen, Verso 1989) and L’editore (Feltrinelli 1989).