JULY 1st 2017

“Johnny the Partisan” (Il partigiano Johnny) is a novel written by Beppe Fenoglio. It is considered to be the most important novel of the Resistance and the Italian twentieth century, this is why it has been chosen as a set book for the students who take part in this project. Johnny, the Resistance and the Langhe are the protagonists of this novel, which was found among Fenoglio’s papers after his death.

A chronicle of the partisan war, an anti heroic epic in which the author projects his own existence in a dramatic view, Johnny the Partisan conveys a human meaning more important than the political and historical one. From the formation of the first partisan groups to the summer of 1944 and the conquest of Alba, we follow the odyssey of Johnny and his comrades and what they have to deal with: the ambushes against the German vehicles, the executions of the spies in the plains, the skirmishes and the confrontations among the various rebel groups.