A crítica do progresso e do trabalho precário em La vita agra, de Luciano Bianciardi

Abstract

La vita agra, intensely autobiographical novel by Luciano Bianciardi, published by Rizzoli in 1962, may be described as a scathing critique of the Italian economic miracle, the successful postwar recovery underway in the 1950s and 1960s in Italy. The narrator, who moves to Milan on a terrorist mission to avenge the death of forty-three coal miners and ends up becoming a translator, has a lot to say about labour, consumption and personal relationship in a big city. This article aims at aligning this novel with the critique of progress, especially Walter Benjamin's theorizations, and highlighting its predictive analysis of precarious work inrecent decades.