Hard Labor

A landmark translation of passionate, fiercely intelligent poetry about coming of age by one of the most influential Italian writers of the 20th Century.

Cesare Pavese’s 1936 collection of poems, Lavorare stanca, is increasingly regarded as one of the most astonishing and powerful books of twentieth-century poetry. William Arrowsmith’s translations, accompanied here by the original Italian lyrics, capture the spirit and complex vitality of Pavese’s voice. This edition also contains a thorough introduction to Pavese’s work, notes to individual poems, and two critical essays that Pavese wrote about Lavorare stanca, the book by which he hoped to be remembered. “Lavorare stanca,” Pavese once declared, “is a book that might have saved a generation.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) was born on his family’s vacation farm in the country outside of Turin in northern Italy. After publishing Hard Labor in1936, he turned to writing novels and short stories. Pavese won the Strega Prize for fiction, Italy’s most prestigious award, for The Moon and the Bonfires (available as an NYRB Classic) in 1950. Later the same year, after a brief affair with an American actress, he committed suicide. Pavese’s posthumous publications include his celebrated diaries, essays on American literature, and a second collection of poems, entitled Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi (Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes). NYRB Classics also publishes The Selected Works of Cesar Pavese. 

William Arrowsmith (1924-1992) was an American classicist, academic, and translator, esteemed for his translations Greek drama in particular. He was the founding editor of the Hudson Review.

Ted Olson is a Professor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, poems, creative nonfiction essays, articles, reviews, and more, and has received seven Grammy awards for his work as a musical historian.