The Confino di polizia of Cesare Pavese

This paper has two central aims. In one hand, to analyze the historical circumstances: the arrest, the detention and the confino di polizia of Cesare Pavese. In the other hand, to understand how this historical period (1935-1936) not only had an influence on his life but above all how it was significant on his poetic, narrative and diaristic work. The analysis of a collection of his works-among them, the letters he exchanged, the novel Il carcere and the naissance of Il mestiere di vivere- allows us to understand what meant the «confinamento calabro » for the Turin writer, reconstructing all the ties that connect these works. The close linkage that arises from these texts between the art of life and the art of writing, at the same time permits us to approach to the complex relationship that exists between life experience and narrative in the life and work of Pavese.