From "Those ladies", a novel about prostitution that depopulated in the XNUMXs, to anti-clericalism up to the infatuation with the race which, after the fall of fascism, caused him to be purged. The literary and editorial success of Umberto Notari is a singular case, which leaps to the fore in the review of last century's bestsellers launched by FIRST Arte and which has already brought back to the fore the most popular books that our grandparents read, from Guido da Verona to Pitigrilli and to Mario Mariani and now to Notari.
We are at the fourth episode of the series on bestselling writers from the unification of Italy to the post-war period. It is the turn of Umberto Notari (Bologna, 1878-Perledo, 1950). Like the protagonists of the previous year, Notari's literary career went ad intersewith that of a public figure, a phenomenon of custom and an intellectual engaged in the political struggle. His books greatly benefited from the media super-exposure of the writer who at one point turned into that of cultural impresario. His cultural and political activism and proximity to power circles ended up tarnishing an extraordinary career. He was among the signatories of the Manifesto on Race, an adhesion which he accompanied with an essay entitled Panegeric of the Italian breed.
The case is said…
It is truly true that sometimes the important achievements, the ones that the newspapers will later talk about, arise from fortuitous encounters, from absolutely random and unpredictable events. And the story of Umberto Notari, protagonist of one of the most striking editorial-literary cases in the country, as well as author of very successful novels in the first decade of the twentieth century, seems made on purpose to demonstrate it.
