A short life of the author
Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) was born on 5 March 1922 in Bologna. He was a communist, an openly gay man in Catholic Italy, and a relentless provocateur.
Life and Career
Pasolini’s novels Ragazzi di vita (The Street Kids, 1955) and Una vita violenta (A Violent Life, 1959) — about the lumpenproletariat of Rome’s borgate (shanty towns) — were prosecuted for obscenity. His films — Accattone (1961), The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), Teorema (1968), Salò (1975) — are among the most important in Italian cinema.
His journalism and cultural criticism — collected in Scritti corsari (Corsair Writings, 1975) — attacks both consumer capitalism and the Italian left with equal ferocity. Petrolio (1992) — an unfinished novel published posthumously — is a vast, fragmentary work about Italian power.
Pasolini was murdered on 2 November 1975 on the beach at Ostia. The circumstances of his death remain contested.
Major Works and Themes
Pasolini wrote about class, sexuality, the sacred, and the destruction of Italian peasant and working-class culture by consumer capitalism.
Key Works
- Ragazzi di vita (1955)
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964, film)
Collecting Pasolini
Italian originals (Garzanti, Einaudi) are the primary collected form. English translations bring $10–$30. Pasolini died in 1975.