Dos Passos’s U.S.A. Trilogy in Italy. The Declining Trajectory of an American Modernist on the Italian Book Publishing Market and Mondadori’s ‘buchi nell’acqua’ (1933-1960)

John Dos Passos’s Italian publishing history between the 1930s and 1950s – when his work was translated and published by Mondadori – traces a quick downward trajectory in terms of both critical reception and commercial success. In the years preceding the second world conflict, Dos Passos occupies an anomalous position in the modern (and modernist) canon of American literature shaped by Cesare Pavese and Elio Vittorini for the Italian literary field. His work was consigned to critical and public oblivion by end of the Second World War. By examining archival documents available at the Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto in Milan, and Pavese’s and Vittorini’s essays and letters, my analysis will address how Pavese’s critical understanding of Dos Passos’s u.s.a. trilogy, his exclusion of from the anthology Americana and his mainly non-fictional output in the 1940s and 1950s were contributing factors to the increasingly scarce critical and commercial appeal in Italy.