Das Handwerk des Lebens

For fifteen years, Cesare Pavese, one of the most important representatives of Neorealism, reflected on his life and literature in a diary. These are the years during which Pavese's works were published, from his first poems to his last and most famous novel "The Moon and the Fire," in which Pavese returns in writing to the place of his childhood. Alongside thoughts on his work as an author and editor, the diaries contain confessions of a torn man. "The Craft of Life" is a moving self-testimony that tells of the wounds and disappointments of a great writer and hints at his longing for death years before Pavese's suicide. Maja Pflug was awarded the Christoph-Martin-Wieland Translator Prize in 1999 for her translation of "The Craft of Life." For the new edition, she has thoroughly reviewed and revised her translation.