A stinging life

Author's name: Luciano Bianciardi

A Citrus Life marks the turning point that brought writer and journalist Luciano Bianciardi true success in the world of fiction. It is largely autobiographical, and the reader sees the protagonist leave the countryside with his wife and young son and go to live in Milan. The initial goal of his travels is to blow up a skyscraper, in order to take revenge on the miners who perished in an accident resulting from a lack of occupational safety. Bianciardi refers to the 1954 Ribolla mine accident, which claimed the lives of forty-three miners. However, the hero lives in a delicate, unbroken balance between a desire for tangible liberation from the conditions he hates most, and a tendency to recognize and surrender to them as a lived reality that will never change. Perhaps even now, A Citrus Life remains an unparalleled insight and a vigilant witness to the human and social consequences of the Italian economic boom, that era full of problems and issues.