“CHI DA UMANO, COME FUOCO DÀ LUCE, CONTRIBUISCE ALLA VITA DEL MONDO”: LA PASSIONE CIVILE DI ANNA MARIA ORTESE NELLE LETTERE A FLAVIA ARLOTTA COLACICCHI

Abstract

Anna Maria Ortese and the painter Flavia Arlotta exchanged a long and intense correspondence from the autumn of 1961 until a year before the writer’s death, revealing a fraternal friendship and a close bond, dictated by common interests and passions. The letters, preserved in the Giovanni Colacicchi and Flavia Arlotta Fund at the “Archivio contemporaneo ‘Alessandro Bonsanti’ Gabinetto Vieusseux di Firenze” and donated by Arlotta herself, constitute a valuable source for a thorough analysis of Ortese’s literary and critical activity between the 1960s and the 1990s. The present study focuses on the early period of their correspondence and on Ortese’s interest in civil rights issues, which unveils between the lines of the rich epistolary writing.