(Saturday, March 16, 2024, 3 p.m., Sala del Maggior Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa)
Arrested by Fascist police on November 8, 1926, Antonio Gramsci spent the rest of his life in prison or at least not completely free: in fact, he died on April 27, 1937, just when he was about to regain some control over his days. Before being imprisoned he published no books, only newspaper articles; and with difficulty in prison he managed to write in notebooks the preparatory notes for a series of studies, which he never completed. In the time of the author’s life, in short, there is no book, much less freedom: to speak of Gramsci and his Prison Notebooks at an event entitled Book and Freedom is to wander through a singular labyrinth of twentieth-century Italian history.