Curzio Malaparte

Curzio Malaparte is the pseudonym of Kurt Erich Suckert who died in 1957. One of the most independent and influential Italian writers of the mid-20th century. Like many young Italians in the 1920s, Malaparte converted to fascism. He also manifested his political views in his own magazine Prospettive (1937) and other publications. Malaparte's early fiction was pro-fascist, but toward the end of his life he showed understanding of Maoism. Malaparte's best book, KAPUTT (1944), partly written in Finland during World War II, contrasted with grotesque humor the elegant pessimism of its cosmopolitan characters and the suffering the war caused to masses of people.