The book
The Street Kids is arguably the most important novel by Italy’s preeminent 20th century author, film director and political thinker Pier Paolo Pasolini. First published in 1955, it caused such public outrage that Pasolini was charged with obscenity. Although he was acquitted at trial, the novel was lambasted by critics and readers alike, until its undeniable force led to it being universally acknowledged as a masterpiece.
Set in Rome during the post-war years, the Rome of the “borgate”, outlying neighbourhoods beset by poverty and deprivation, it tells the story of a group of adolescents belonging to the urban underclass. Riccetto and his friends live day by day and hand-to-mouth, of odd jobs, petty crime and prostitution, their hunger growing as Italy begins to enjoy a period of economic growth and unprecedented change, until their needs too change beyond recognition.
Rooted in the neorealist movement of the 1950s, The Street Kids is a tender, heart-rending tribute to an entire underclass in danger of being forgotten.
Praise for Pier Paolo Pasolini
“[Pasolini was a] brilliant intellectual, a director, and a homosexual, whose political vision—based on a singular entwinement of Eros, Catholicism, and Marxism—foresaw Italian history after his death, and the burgeoning of global consumerism.”—Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian
“Pasolini is Italy’s most important twentieth century poet.”—Alberto Moravia, author
“Pasolini was an artist and thinker who tried not to resolve his contradictions but rather to embody them fully.”—Dennis Lim, The New York Times
“He had many essential roles in Italian society, and he was always searching, completely open to different ways of looking at things.”—Jytte Jensen, curator of the Pasolini retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
The author
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Born in 1922, Pier Paolo Pasolini was a film director, poet, writer and political thinker. Throughout his life he exhibited extraordinary cultural versatility and became a highly controversial figure. While his work remains contentious, since his tragic death in 1975, Pasolini has come to be seen as a visionary thinker and a major figure in Italian literature and art. His Poems were included by Harold Bloom in his bestselling work of literary criticism The Western Canon.
Reviews
- May 18 2017
Rent Boys
— The Times Literary Suplement - Nov 12 2016
Pasolini’s lost boys
— The Guardian - Sep 16 2016
The street kids by Pier Paolo Pasolini
— Winstonsdad's Blog - Sep 4 2016
The Street Kids
— 1streading's Blog