1968: Italian Literature across Borders

Abstract The 1968 student protest movement, and related movements for social reform and radical social change, marked an intense moment of both innovation and crisis in Italy. If this reached peak intensity in 1968–69, it developed over a long arc from the late 1950s and spilled over in dramatic ways throughout the decade of the 1970s. The movements were strikingly international in nature, even global according to some scholars, drawing inspiration especially from the emblematic events of May 1968 in Paris. They were also profoundly cultural or countercultural in their modes of action and imagination, and thus inevitably also had an impact on the sphere of literature in ways that are not always fully acknowledged. This chapter revisits the literature of 1968 in Italy, paying particular attention to its dynamic interaction with protest and thought, its innovative forms of expression, and its dynamically transnational and translingual nature.