VARIETY
Ignazio Silone
SelF-PORTRAIT
IN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Why do you write?
To communicate with others.
What sort of readers do you have
most in mind when you write?
Individual men and women given
to thinking for themselves–
restless spirits.
What do you think your books
can give them?
A little companionship.
And to the chance reader?
A flea in the ear.
What do you think of critics?
It's a big world; there's room for
everyone.
W hat influence has criticism had
on your writing?
Absolutely none.
Your fa vorite novelists?
Cervantes, Tolstoy, Verga.
Your favorite modern painter?
Rouault.
If you weren't a writer, what would
you like to be?
A miller.
W hat do you like doing
In
,'our
spare time?
R eading and talking.
Do you ever think of returning to
active politics?
If
freedom were in danger, yes.
W hat gift of Nature do you most
desire?
Health.
Who, of the people you have met,
have been most important to
you?
A few simple people; among the
well-known, Don Orione, Gram–
sci, Trotsky, Ragaz.
1
What characters in Italian history
do you find most stimulating?
Joachim da Fiore, Francis of Assisi,
Thomas Campanella.
What contemporary character?
Simone Weil.
What do you consider the most
important date in world history?
December 25 of the year
o.
And of recent times?
The workers' revolt in Eastern
Germany on June 17, 1953.
W hat do you think about the third
world war?
It would prepare the way for the
fourth.
Among military heroes, whom do
you most admire?
Joshua, when he stopped the sun,
and the good soldier Schweik.
Do you believe progress to be in-
evitable?
No.
Do you believe that man is free?
I think man can be free.
1
Don Luigi Orione:
a Catholic
priest who founded the "Order of
Divine Providence," and whom Silone
knew in boyhood.
Antonio Gramsci:
one of the founders of the Italian Com–
munist Party and its chief intellectual
exponent. He died in a Fascist jail.
Leonhard Raga{:
former Protestant
minister and professor of theology in
Zurich University, who inspired and
fostered the Christian-Socialist move–
ment in Central Europe. Silone met
him during his years of exile in
Switzerland.
